#look i hated season 3 but that scene almost redeemed it

[thelastevilregal]

If we were standing on a bridge together and we agreed to stand back to back and then walk directly forward without looking back because our obsession with each other was slowly destroying all the good things that remained of us would you still look back anyway? Yes or no?

#villaneve #killing eve #look i hated season 3 but that scene almost redeemed it #peak romance

[chaifootsteps]

Okay sorry I was talking with my mother

1) I hate sir Pentious’s new character. Sure, he’s fun. But oh my gosh, I miss his old character. The way that’s he’s not at all remorseful and just purely wants destruction  and to rule over the pentagram city. But now he’s too goody goody(I haven’t seen the new episode, pls don’t spoil it), and turned WAYYYY to easily over to Charlie’s anti-Christ ass, and wanting to be redeemed. He should have stayed a spy for longer and I would’ve loved to see his dynamic grow with the Vees(especially Vox) and how he worked for them as a spy. His rape scene wasp so uncomfortable and unnecessary, and speaking of that his and cherris relationship should of never of even been thought about. It’s such an awkward thing, as they’re rivals and Cherri has destroyed things that he’s made and insults him.

2) speaking of Cherri, she offered Angel drugs(which seems like it’s a normal thing for them as she’s so causal about it) when she knew he was there at the hotel that’s for redemption, but also she was so rude to Angel when he was trying to get Nifty out of the cleaning closet??? She’s a much better friend in the pilot and in the addict music video. She’s showing actual friendship and concern for Angel, nothing like she does now.

3) Alastor. Sure, I like his moments, but he’s so painfully edgy it’s not that good. His radio sound effects are good, I miss the old effects that he had in the pilot and his old voice actor, but of course viv is a “it’s my way or the high-way” gal and she dumped all of the previous cast. He’s nearly completely different now, claiming that Charlie is like his daughter(I swear to god he better be manipulative to her in that moment), when in the pilot he openly mocked her and what she was trying to do. He seems way to open about his emotions and wanting r help Charlie, using a TV(???) and playing along when what she wants to do. He also seems to much like an attention whore, which could be a good character trait if he wasn’t the way he is now. Also he’s too touchy touchy with everyone, especially Charlie.

4) Angel dust is not as interesting now as he was to me in the pilot. Now he’s just a porn star who gets raped and abused and is going to be redeemed. I’d love to see his old character traits(from before the pilot and during, such as mafia, insane, violent, ect), rather than just “oh he’s a gay sex spider who sometimes does violence but he’s such a good person now for finding love and refusing drugs!!!! :3”.

5) Husk’s new voice. I see the appeal of his new one, but his old voice actor just hit different. Make that skinny 1970s gambler man sound like he smokes 5 packs a day. Also I can’t stop thinking about the cat from Coraline.

6) almost everything about vaggie. Her design, her actions, and her backstory. It’s cool that she’s a fallen Angel but oh my gosh!! Don’t reveal that in the first season!! Slow burn that shit!! And why did she do quickly realize that he’s murdering ‘innocent souls’?? They’re in hell for a reason, she didn’t have to think that just because it was a kid it was innocent of any crimes it did. They revealed it too soon, it would have been a good twist for season 2.

7) vivziepop seemingly mocks Christianity and I had to look up how Saint Peter looked like, AND SHE WHITE-WASHED HIM SO BAD. HE LOOKS NOTHING LIKE HE SHOULD, AND HES SUCH A COMPLEX PEROSN FROM THE BIBLE AND AND SHORTENED HIS CHARACTER SO BADLY.

Anyways, my TED talk is over. Thank you

Thanks for your TED Talk, Anon. It was an excellent talk.

#Anonymous #vivziepop critical #hazbin hotel critical #viv stuff #actual blog post

[allisoooon]

The reaction to Allison has been interesting ,(and mildly infuriating) I've seen so many people saying "obviously" this was setting her up as the big bad villian of S4 which I don't see at all.

I think it comes from a few different things:-

1) people saying they want morally ambiguous/dysfunctional characters but in reality don't unless it's 'pretty' or angsty or something people can easily project on to. I assume there has to be a big difference in demographic for TUA Vs say, The Boys which is full of reprehensible people but the audience expect it. We've seen The umbrellas kill people as kids , I don't think their morality is the same of everyone elses.

2) there are two things I think from a writing perspective probably should have been done differently a) the Luther rumour scene -it brings back the romance subplot that people hated and couldn't even accept as an example of how their childhood fucked them all up, and well, it's hard to redeem SA. Probably should have been cut.

b) there's a certain point in S3 where all Allisons dialogue becomes almost entirely angry/snarky which has lead to a large influx of 'omg Allison is such a bitch!!!!!' I wish there was a late in the series convo with someone neutral like Klaus to give the character a moment to breathe.

3) Lack of sympathy for the character bc we've seen very little of Allison's life pre S1 and in childhood. I've seen loads of people say that she has had a basically cushy life due to her powers, and I think sooo many of the audience believe if they had her powers it would be all sunshine and rainbows. We got multiple flashbacks for Klaus this season (which I loved) but I really think Allison would benefit from some.

4) good old racism and misogyny. I reaaaaallly wanna know what the reaction would have been if Klaus killed Harlan for revenge for the moms or some shit.

Whew, this is all very true. People want traumatized/morally grey characters as long as they're sexy about it (see: Spike from Buffy, who took the SA way further and was still probably the most popular character). It's still bizarre for people to have watched the second season and say she's never had to work for anything.

I also think it's the target, though. Being mean to Viktor is kind of treated like the ultimate sin. People act like he's a little kid. So we get an angry black woman (already stigmatized as fuck) screaming at a small white person people essentially see as a child and go "I understand why she's angry, but she's crossing a line by being mean about it." She's talking to someone who destroyed her life twice. Does she owe it to him to be nice about what he has done to her, sometimes intentionally? Don't get me wrong, their fight was fucked up and Allison said some fucked-up shit, but the issue of the audience's reaction to Allison this season is multi-faceted--and it is an issue.

We needed more of her perspective. Fuck, we needed that scene with Klaus or someone where she says she doesn't get why everyone's so keen on dying and letting everyone else die with them. Put that between the vote and Reg killing Luther and Klaus could help her come to terms with death by talking about what awaits them on the other side. She could start looking forward to seeing Ray again when they hear a scream from down the hall...

...Apparently I have a fanfic to write.

But for real, I don't think Allison's arc will feel satisfying until next season. I think there will be big consequences for her, as many as there were benefits for her this season, and I hope they will come after she has calmed down and is ready to make peace with everyone. That's not even getting into what Harlan could have meant when he said her vibration sounded "wrong" (something to do with her self-rumor, maybe?).

#tua meta #the umbrella academy #allison hargreeves #viktor hargreeves #klaus hargreeves #five hargreeves #ask answered

[yikesharringrove]

Aight now we’ve got the dive

I’ve seen spoilers for this, of Steve diving into the underwater upside down gate and can u just say I CALLED IT.

Wow, it’s almost like an underwater gate is super cinematic and interesting ✌️🤪

Thots: had some great moments, but also had some of my least favorite moments of the season so far.

The California/Utah gang feels so fucking disconnected from everything else. They tried so so hard to shove Suzie into this season and made it a weird comic relief scene when the pen could’ve just had the coordinates hidden in it and they go right to the Nina project

The storylines are becoming so stretched that’s it’s hard for me to keep track of everything.

The whole satanic panic being spurred on by Jason is the worst thing stranger things has ever done. It feels like some cheap riverdale shit and that show sucks for a reason. I think it could’ve been mentioned like Eddie’s intro scene where he’s reading that article, but it’s taken such a focus that I can’t stand.

Steve Harrington is the light of my life but that’s not New information.

Anyway, this episode really lost me in a lot of ways but that ending with Steve being eaten alive was really tense

Notey note notes

Alright maybe now Jason can fucking CHILL

Ope. Nope. The opposite of chill

“How do you expect to stop the devil, if you don’t believe he’s real” maybe it’s my religious trauma talking, but the satanic panic shit needs to END I’m literally so so so over it

There’s just too much happening tbh. This military group looking for el and the team getting els powers back and the team in Hawkins helping max and the basketball boys hunting Eddie and the team going to Utah and the team in Russia and also hopper in Russia im Tired

The brenner redemption is the second to last thing I needed (the last thing I need is Steve/Nancy getting back together)

“You have demons in your past” AND YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR A LOT OF THEM

They are trying to redeem brenner and they couldn’t have been added to give billy a satisfying character arc???? What?????

“At least he can drink himself into feeling better” “that’s what my mom does” I’m WHEEZING nobody is pulling their punches today I see

Not even paying attention to what’s being said bc I’m so focused on Steve eating like a bear out of focus in the background

Steve in the yellow sweatshirt about to steal every scene (and also my heart)

Idk I just. They are constantly making sure Eddie knows they’re there for him and like. No one cared about billy.

THOSE MOUNTAINS HIT ME IN THE FACE LIKE A BRICK I FEEL SICK I KNOW THAT RANGE

Oh god oh Jesus Salt Lake City I’m. No. No.

Not them about to bring this Latinx man into the 80s mormons’ house.

Good shot, kid.

The way they are painting these kids as super weird kinda fucks actually but I just feel sick I’m so anti-Mormon it’s insane

MORTON SALT HELL YEAH

“Father’s kidneys!” Me except it’s my own fucked up kidneys

God this whole scene has but such a bad taste in my mouth

This ally sheedy bitch I hope she leaves the church and thrives

Joyce and Murray threatening yuri with these shitass Russian accents dream team I love them

Not me muting the scene of them eating bc of the chewing sounds ✌️🤢

Every time I see this plinko I think of the horse plinko from a few weeks ago lol

Not this stupid bitch using the royal we fuckin hate him

HES number one. Why is 1 get to be a special Pokémon trainer and the other kids are stuck??

Okay so NOW we get a Kali mention. So Kali did escape when she was like 3????? Bro what?????

“It wasn’t popular until I made it popular” everything Steve says is comedy just looking at him makes me smile a stupid fucking smile (also what is with his pants WHERE are the tight tight little jeans)

Okay but he’s RIGHT

WOW Patrick was targeted bc he’s been abused stranger things killing off ANOTHER abused kid just for the fun of it. Cool.

Goddamn thank god Lucas is getting back to his old self being THE MOST caring and thoughtful person I missed him

Robin SHUT UP do not talk about rekindling old flames NO ONE WANTS STEVE AND NANCY BACK TOGETHER STEVE HAS TOLD YOU THATS HES OVER HER PLS PLS PLS shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I do like robin and Nancy getting closer like this though I think it’s good for them both

“bada bing bada boom” Italian Steve #confirmed

“In your stupid cocky little face” “you just can’t admit that you’re wrong you little butthead” your honor hes everything to me

Not Steve’s hair all slicked back like that WHAT

He’s never looked better

CLAUDIA HENDERSON

Bro Jason literally GO AWAY I fucking can’t with this satanic panic shit I know this is like. How it was but. I hate it I hate it here

Bash Jason’s head in with a rock challenge

Claudia fucking crying while Jason is saying Dustin is in a cult

“Last night I was overcome with this feeling of hopelessness. Then I remembered Romans 12:21” GO AWAY

I hate this I hate this I hate this

Jason as some weird religious Archie Andrews is just nothing that I wanted

I played my sister this scene bc it was so beyond shitty and she was like bro wtf

Claudia and Karen and Mrs. Sinclair making pointed eye contact with one another

Suzie has TWO byu flag things in her room this girl sucks

(Pls find the Black Menaces on Instagram and tiktok to understand the scope of why byu is a fucking nightmare)

Suzie and this guilt thing it’s bc Mormons use guilt like a fucking weapon so they can’t deal when they do something Bad

“I was dating an agnostic” also mos aren’t supposed to date until 16 sooo

Oh shot the pta is here Claudia Henderson loml

“A stake is like a vamp-is he a vampire?” STEVE HARRINGTON CANON BUFFY FAN YES YES YES THIS IS WVERYTHING IVE EVER NEEDED PLEASE GOD OH SHIT OH SHIT wow the way Steve’s whole life revolves around the original movie omg he’s gonna be so excited when the tv show comes out

“Everything was like way easier. We had this girl. She had superpowers.” I’m just writing down literally everything he says

BACK TO THE COMPASS YES love that they’ve brought this back from season one so so happy with that call back

“Snack size gate”

Steve #1 drama queen award

“What’s say you Eddie the Banished” I love that they’ve never stopped making Dustin’s weirdness his #1 personality trait

“I say you’re asking me to follow you into Mordor” literally he’s billy from every single fic over written FUCK

Brenner teaching them to be emotionless fighting machines bitch disgusting

So does this mean Kali is the only one with different powers???

There’s so many plots happening that every I only remember who’s on screen at a time like the California gang and the Russia gang are not in my brain unless they’re on screen

But this Murray yuri parent trap princess switch FUCKS I love this idea so so much

This fight is gotta be staged to help them get out

CALLED IT

The way hopper s a fucking genius I can’t. Like, you want head?

Anyway in case you’re wondering how the Mormons are doing

Badly.

I was gonna make a joke earlier about how the names aren’t Mormon enough and I was gonna specifically say “where’s the tanner?” Bc I have 3 cousins named tanner BUT one of the kids IS named tanner there you go

“What’s the internet” “don’t worry about it”

Suzie is the og dataminer

“I think we just spooked a skunk” NOPE JUST YOUR SISTER HOTBOXING WITH ARGYLE amazing

The writers have watched to much fucking riverdake I hate it here

“Who put her in charge?” “I did.” GAY

“Bedtime at nine kiddos. Miss you already!” R O B I N

Bro what the FUCK is going on in here on this day

These older kids are wildin out “you shamed me today” ????

Yeah I really think Kali is the only one with unique powers good for her

“Unless one of you can top being a Hawkins high swim team co-captain and a certified lifeguard for three years it’s gotta be me. No complaints, alright?” SWIMMER STEVE CONFIRMED

YES CHEST HAIR YES YES YES HES SO HOT I AM LOOKING DISRESPECTFULLY I AM OBJECTIFYING

“I keep telling him he needs to take that jungle” no he does NOT

MAX HELL YES

I love her just shameless ogling Steve she deserves it. She totally always thought he was hit and billy would make fun of her for it and she’d be like ‘you think he’s hot too shut up’

Lucas just looking back and forth between the boat and max for twenty minutes this is a comedy show

God this Nancy/Steve shit I wish I was dead

Okay that dive did not say swim team co captain Steven

Omg Dustin’s tiny singular giggle after saying watergate king shit

Not Steve painlessly holding his breath for an hour and a half

Okay but the way his hand was shaking as he went to touch the gate membrane thing

Oh shit they’re doing a good job ramping up the tension here with the cops showing up and the vines reaching up for this group

“More of a snack sized gate than a mama gate but still” love u

That moment when he first gets yanked and then he looks at them, looks down, then looks back at them and then gets yanked harder. Amazing

Wow rip to Steve’s ankle

Oh SHIT Dustin and Lucas don’t realize the whole town is fucking hunting them FUCK

Oh god of course robin is a nose plugger

Eddie’s voice raising twelve octaves while he’s yelling and freaking out king shit

Steve first time in the upside down welcome 2 hell baby love

So in tremors 1 we have the graboids. Season 1 we have the demogorgons. The biggest, full size version of the creatures. Completely practical effects. Maintained anonymous until final reveal while attacking protagonist. Tremors 2: aftershocks brings shriekers and season 2 brings demodogs. Smaller creatures that have ability to run on land. Smarter but also dumber than the full size. Tremors 3: back to perfection has ass-blasters and season 4 has demobats. This ‘flying’ counterpart utilizes the most disappointing cgi of the 3 and feels a bit forced.

Steve getting choked 👀

Oh jesus christ these fuckers are really dining out on our Steven. He really though he was gonna die alone in the upside down being eaten alive by monsters oh god oh fuck

Wow good ending here

#I have written Steve in yellow lingerie before bc I knew he’d look SO GOOD in yellow and guess who was right #ME #if anyone is actually reading ALL of my barely coherent thoughts I’m so so sorry #yikes talks #st4 #stranger things spoiler #strangerthingsspoilers

[marisandini-chu-blog]

How Shadow and Bones Differentiate Villain and Anti-Hero

Alright, first I need to claim the fact that I love dark, edgy, but misunderstood bad boy in stories with the potential of epic redemption. Loki from Marvel. Jason Todd from DC. Captain Hook from Once Upon a Time. Zuko from AtLA. You name them, I simp them.

So when I watched this new show on Netflix and shown a tall, handsome man in dark clothing, both respected and feared for his power. I feel... nothing. 

WHICH IS WEIRD! Like... he’s obviously my type. Complete with the sad backstory and vicious streak. So I kept wondering why I wasn’t enamored by the Darkling, Alexander Kirigan. I wasn’t surprised he was the main villain, I even expected it. But I usually at least have a bit of sympathy for them. This OOC behavior of mine made me introspect myself and the show, trying to find out which part gave me the red flags before Mother Darkling decides to pop the chosen one out halfway in the season. 

That’s when it hit me; there were red flags! The show had been subtly trying to tell us Kirigan is a manipulative boyfriend not just by great acting and good directing, but by comparing him with the actual anti-hero of the story who I actually love; Kaz Brekker. 

Here’s the list of signs you might not notice of why Kirigan is meant to be a Villain instead of an Anti-Hero. 

1. The Eyes

"The eyes are the window to the soul" is a common saying and and the key to good acting for any good show. Eyes tell us a lot about what a person’s character is like and SaB showed us the difference of a sincere man and a man with a hidden agenda.

Look at him! Look at that little smirk. Look at the gaze. That's the look you find when someone's evil little plan is finally coming together. Not one awed by the power or by Alina. A blatant sus move is what I'm saying. Congrat, first flag planted.

Sure he could still fall in love with Alina, but that doesn't stop his agenda either. All it does is potentially create conflict for him to pick either his plan for revenge or life with Alina.

In comparison, look at Kaz when he said this to Inej; "She isn't like you, no one is." Straightforward eyes. Serious grim. No nonsense tone. Inej is one of the most talented and terrifying rogue-assassin and Kaz just blatantly said that he kept her from 'slavery' because of who she is, not what she's capable of. Like... the man has no shame being known to love her while still trying to be professional (or as professional a thief can be). I can respect that.

This is the eye of a man who would abandon everything to make sure she comes out alright in the end. Do not argue with me on this!

2. Leverage and Status

The moment Alina steps into the Little Palace she was treated like a princess. A palace, by the way, that’s managed by the Darkling. She gets favorable treatment; from the food, Zoya displaced when she fought Alina, a horseback ride just the two of them, asking her to call by his name to make them familiar, a black uniform that might as well be claiming???

Dude is desperate is what I’m saying. 

Sure, this could all be romantic gestures. There’s the problem that Kirigan is superior in status and name, powerful Grisha, and has a vested interest in her power. Pursuing romance while Kirigan has the ability to make her life heaven or hell with a snap of his finger made every single decision be seen with wariness. 

"Beware of powerful men," Genya couldn't put it any better.

Had they pursued romance after they destroy the fold, cementing Alina’s position as a saint more. Then I might have let go of that wariness. 

I’m only proven correct when the moment Alina turned away from him, Kirigan made another leverage by (spoiler!) putting an antler to her collarbone... eeeewwww much?! 

That’s how desperate the Darkling is to be in control of a person and a situation. 

And when no letter came for Alina? That a big red flag because who else in this castle can control the coming of going of letter with the Savior. HMMMMMMMMMMM.....

Then there’s Kaz. My man. There’s no competition. This guy held no leverage on my dear Inej. When she almost decided to leave, Kaz didn't force or convince her to stay but he ask her. Doesn't remind her of her debt whether monetary or life debt to him. In fact, this guy needs money for revenge but instead mortgage his main source of income for her freedom.

HE POSTPONED HIS LIFE GOAL TO FREE HER FROM DEBT ASJHAKFSDJGLDFJ!!!  

What more do I need to say? 

3. Sympathy Card

This is the type of point you want to watch out from your partners, ladies, gents, and others. The sympathy card is the way to go when anyone wants to reach out to you so you can take care of them before they abuse or gaslight you. 

While it’s good to share trauma and eased the burden, sometimes it's healthy to ask yourself whether the person can take advantage of you and to verify whether they lie to you or not.

When Kirigan shared about his past as a sympathetic boy with his secluded fountain and coin. Everything about that scene rang warning bells for me... the part he had requested her to use his color... requesting to horse ride with just them two... sharing sob story that may encourage Alina to help him...

Kudos to Alina to see through the fact she's seen as a means to an end.

It was only when Kirigan showed righteous anger and frustration of a war that's killing his people did Alina finally opened her heart to him.

Kaz however doesn't use the sympathy card. Heck, the man likes to believe he shed away any weakness and threw it in the harbor where it belongs. Kaz hates weaknesses. And garnering sympathy is an admission of weakness for him.

We still know there's a tragic backstory as any decent anti-hero would have... but by not sharing that, this implies that Inej and Jesper stayed because of who he is, and not because of who he was or how he came to be. They don't need a sob story to stay together and that showed a stronger bond between them.

4. Friends

To be frank, I find this the most hilarious because this point is the one that convinced me that Kirigan was secretly an evil bastard.

He doesn’t have any friends!!!

Like... dude had a literal witch army, a wife once, a fuck buddy, and a girlfriend but there wasn’t a single moment in the show where someone, outside of Alina and superior, to speak casually to him. 

You’re telling me this person... the most powerful and influential Grisha in the East Ravka, charming as hell, handsome as fuck, and yet he doesn’t have friends?! 

“I’ve buried good soldiers... friends...” Get the fuck out of here! WHAT FRIENDS?!?! Maybe if you get off your little power trip from your self-made pedestal, you can actually be less of an asshole and make one. 

Sure he excused himself by blaming his ‘ancestor’ for being a shadow summoner. I can see how the fear makes it hard for him to get close to anybody. But all the other characters who are part of his army only ever shown to speak with him respectfully, and the royalty even commend him. No one disrespected him even openly and you’re telling me he doesn’t have one friend amidst all these people?!

In comparison, look at Kaz. He’s brash, crude, and unapologetic. He held true to his moniker ‘Bastard of the Barrel’ and yet this ass has friends. They show Jesper joking with Kaz, and Kaz has shown to banter with him back as well as tolerating his gambling addiction when it could have jeopardized the Job. Inej was shown to actually argue and have disagreement with Kaz when he’s technically her boss. Can you imagine the Darkling doing that? CAN YOU?!

No. Because he's a pretentious ass. That's why.

This is a great example of the use “show not tell” of how Kaz despite his obvious edges has a soft spot shown through his relationship with Inej and Jesper, who have a friendly dynamic. I can attest that while Kaz didn’t create a good first impression, I love Jesper and Inej (they are precious!) so much that I project it to Kaz in extension.

On the other hand, Kirigan’s goodwill had only ever been told by outsiders or himself. None from his inner circle (which he doesn’t have!) other than his mother, who ended up outing him instead. 

So I applaud the writers and showrunners of SaB to actually have subtext signs of a manipulative bastard. The Duckling is a good villain character that's complex but unredeemable. Sometimes, you just have a good ol' charming villain you can't redeem and that's okay.

#shadow and bone #sab netflix #sab #netflix #Kaz Brekker #inej #inej gafha #Kaz #the darkling #darkling #villain #anti-hero #jesper #grisha #grishaverse #alexander #alexander kirigan #kirigan #jesper fahey #alina #alina starkov #six of crows #soc

[elonaackerman]

Why the Ackertalk must happen: An analysis of Mikasa and Levi relationship.

1) Their meeting

So we all know Mikasa hated Levi in the first place, since he beat Eren violently during the trial. If Armin didn’t stop her, she probably would have attacked him. Instead, because of our favorite blondie holding her back, she just gave to her future captain a death glare. And what is so amazing is that he actually noticed it, and you can see how intrigued he was by Mikasa at that moment.

Since he is praised as humanity strongest, it surprises him that a cadet shows no fear looking at him like if she wanted to kill him and was sure to be capable to do it. And if it wasn’t already very obvious that Mikasa catched Levi’s mind, the name of the chapter finishes the job: « still can’t see » in English, and « made me o mirenai » in japanese. I think the English translation is not on point, because if you look at the french translation, it could be translated as: « an unbearable stare ». The meaning is completely different and gives a lot of weight to Mikasa’s look and how Levi felt about it. It places their interaction and meeting at the center of the chapter. It’s not something you do for characters who do not have a particular storyline together, especially when the main character’s fate is also part of the chapter.

2) The Female Titan

Here comes what is usually refereed as the key moment which started the rivamika ship: the rescue of Mikasa by Levi in the forest. First of all, Levi grabbed Mikasa’s waist, and we won’t lie, it was cute.

BUT what comes after this is even more interesting, because I think Levi recognized Mikasa since the start, even if he couldn’t remember where he saw her in the first place. If you look at his eyes, you can see how shocked he is to see Mikasa in such a situation: I think that’s the moment where Levi started to see himself in her, because she behaved exactly like him years ago when a titan took the lives of Isabel and Farlan: recklessly and with rage. Then, Mikasa acts very agressively towards Levi, and doesn’t show him the respect a cadet normally has for a superior.

That’s how Levi definitely recognizes her: the girl who seems to hate him and who is disrespectful towards the hierarchy is also the one who wanted to slap him at the trial despite him being the strongest human soldier. Levi redeems her, and looks at Mikasa very strangely, silently, his gaze lost in the vague: Mikasa seems to ask herself what he is doing and is shocked by his behavior, because he doesn’t stop staring at her but doesn’t say a word. I still ask myself what he was thinking in that moment. It’s a very mysterious scene. I mean, YES Levi always looks at Mikasa silently in a lot of panels (that’s also cool for the fandom, of course), but this time, Isayama focused several big panels on this single silent interaction, as if Levi was analysing Mikasa on such a deep way that it made her uncomfortable. And the way that he then stop the eye contact with a sort of frustration in the eyes is also very questionable. It intrigues me very much.

After that very tense moment, Levi explains his plan to Mikasa, and reminds her that she must obey to his orders. For the first time, Levi and Mikasa cooperate and show how deadly their Ackerman duo is. Also, Mikasa recognizes Levi strenght, saying the titan’s blood doesn’t even touch his skin since he is incredibly fast. She looked at him with a great attention, observed his technique and acknowledged him. When she fights Annie later in Sina, she will copy his famous « spinning » technique.

From that moment, Mikasa’s perception of Levi totally changed.

After slicing Annie, Levi also saved Mikasa again and broke his ankle. What a great episode to be a rivamika shipper.

3) Season 2: BLANK

I will go quickly on season 2: because of his injury, Levi can’t fight. Mikasa felt guilty for that. When Eren is kidnapped, she tells Armin she is not confident to take him back because this time, Levi isn’t with her. It shows how she values him but also how she likes to fight with him, since she feels stronger by his side. And that’s a great thing knowing that Mikasa said she was stronger than everyone else in the first episodes (and she was right). She finally found an equal.

4) Season 3: THE RIVAMIKA HOLY GRAAL

A] An incredible relationship evolution

So here comes my favorite season, not just for the rivamika, of course, but it’s still the one which provided us more and more moments between our two favorite Ackermans. This season shows Mikasa becoming Levi’s right arm, and not just on a fighting level. Especially in the manga, we can see how much Mikasa’s opinion is important for Levi, it doesn’t seem like she is one of his soldiers but his partner. Of course, Levi has always treated Mikasa in a special way, but it’s more obvious in season 3:

(Here is Levi adressing violently to Historia to make her understand something, and then Levi adressing himself to Eren also to make him realize something, but justifying his words to Mikasa: her opinion and her feelings matter for him. Nobody can denie he acts in an unique way towards this girl)

In a panel, Mikasa looks at Levi with a disappointed look because he said something about a plan implying Eren that didn’t please her. It seems like she is waiting for him to say something in answer to her reaction. Almost as if she felt sort of betrayed after them cooperating for so long. Does she think she has some power over him ?

Now, on Levi’s side: he knows that Mikasa will listen to him, because as she said it herself, she wants to follow her captain’s decisions. It’s very obvious in the anime when he stops her from running after Eren TWO TIMES !!

This season also shows Mikasa caring and sort of apologizing for Levi’s leg wound, which proves that she clearly doesn’t hate him anymore.

B] The Ackerman link

Now comes the very important part of the whole Ackerman plot. With Kenny being introduced, we learn that Ackermans are a bloodline that couldn’t be controlled by the Fritz king because of their ability to resist to memory manipulation: that’s why their clan was persecuted.

Levi soon finds out that he is an Ackerman, just like Mikasa, the gloomy girl he knows so well. And it’s a big deal, not just for the story, but for Levi himself. I am sure, as I already said, that he sees himself in Mikasa since the start: it seems like he doesn’t want her to make the same mistakes as he did. Like I showed it, he is very gentle with her, always checks if she is okay, calms her down everytime. Levi always felt a deep connection to her. Since he now knows that he is an Ackerman, he probably feels even more close and identical to her. However, he doesn’t tell Mikasa that they are part of the same bloodline.

However, he talks about their awakening with her, and everybody is surprised to hear their discussion. Mikasa is sharing her trauma, and she doesn’t seem to hesitate to do it: at this point of the story, she feels comfortable with Levi and she trusts him.

While they speak, it’s almost as if they forgot the others: they are looking at each other eye to eye, and their little talk is very mysterious and sort of intimate. At that moment, Levi established a link that cannot be cut. Mikasa and him are the last survivors of their clan, and they are mirrors, even if he is the only one to know it. (Well, Armin sort of noticed it too, immediately associating Mikasa and Levi in S1, and mistaking Levi and Mikasa the first time the group met the captain-chibi, but it was only about their fighting abilities, not abour their other similarities)

Guess what comes now: THE EPIC ACKERBOWL

So, if a lot of people think the ackerbowl wasted the relationship building of Levi and Mikasa, I think it just showed us how closer they grew during this season.

First of all, Mikasa doesn’t attack Levi because she wants to (as she did in season 1) but because she NEEDS to in order to save Armin. She isn’t happy to do that, and even says « please » to Levi when she could have just insult him or blame him like she used to do: they are not real ennemies, just two people in a great emotional distress wanting to save their closer friends.

It’s also impressive to see how dangerous Ackermans are: together, they are unstoppable, but as opponents, they are so equal that it is scary.

Another important thing: Levi isn’t mad as a normal person with a blade on his throat would be against Mikasa, he still tries to talk to her LIKE WOW that girl just attacked you but you still don’t hate her ? That’s because Levi cares for her, and that’s canon. The fact that she is an Ackerman probably leads him to be more attached to her. And of course, that’s an obvious parallel of his confrontation with Erwin in No regrets. Can we also say how sad and shocked Levi was when he saw Mikasa in tears ? He was really shaken by this sight.

5)Now, what about the Ackertalk ?

Like I said, Levi kept his Ackerman status and his link to Mikasa to himself. I think that, knowing how Mikasa is attached to her loved ones, to the ones she calls « family », he didn’t want to make her suffer by growing closer if he must die later, especially when he was only focused on killing Zeke.

But as the last two survivors of the Ackerman clan, Levi and Mikasa MUST talk about their legacy, their relationship and also their similarities. This post is nearly anime only but what I can tell you is that the Ackertalk still didn’t happen in the manga and probably won’t: that’s the biggest waste ever.

Mikasa and Levi are now both in difficult situations towards their Ackerbond with Eren and Erwin. Mikasa clearly needs Levi’s advices and support (I made another post about Levi’s character development, he is freeing himself alone from the ackerbond, and his ackerbond to Erwin was never toxic like Mikasa’s one to Eren was, in my opinion at least, so Mikasa needs him more than he needs her on the emotional/spirit level. On the fighting level however, Mikasa is now the one carrying him). Anyway, she needs to realize how powerful she actually is regarding how Eren treated her, because she lost her confidence in herself and in her autonomy (I don’t think Eren meant what he said, but still, Mikasa is now thinking she is some kind of slave and doesn’t go through any development). And Levi is the only one who can make her understand that. Because he is like her, and he knows it.

And should I talk about how the distance between Levi and Mikasa in the manga is unnatural ? They barely talk, and when they do it’s blank on Mikasa’s side. After 80 chapters she said, suprise guys: « captain »: THANKS ISAYAMA ! I am about to haunt your future onsen you damn yokai-_- Either he completely forgot about the Ackerman plot line, either something happened between Mikasa and Levi that we are not aware of, and which would be shown in the next chapters, what would explain the tension there is between them.

I hope this article pleased you, english is not my mother tongue so please pardon me if I made mistakes in my writing. It was very complex to sum up all the rivamika logic in one post, because there is always more to say about them. I hope that, even if they do not become a couple, they will grow closer and support each other as the amazing duo they should be. Shingeki is nearly finished, and I must say I am really happy that I’ve been part of the rivamika fandom since the start, even if haters were hard to take sometimes, this ship and this fandom are incredible and made me grow on many levels. Rivamika will always be great, canon or not, as long as we fuel it with our passion ❤️

#rivamika #ackerman clan #ackermans #snk #ackerman #levi x mikasa #mikasa #levi #aot #shingeki no kyojin #ackertalk

[bronyinabottle]

MY LITTLE PONY: A NEW GENERATION (G5 Movie) THOUGHTS

It’s finally here. The beginning of Generation 5. Though before I get into the movie in some detail I’m going to reiterate one more time what G5 means for my content and a non-spoilery summary of the movie.

Again, I will say that the movie nor will the G5 series coming later have much of an effect at all on any of my blogs. The revelation in Secrets of the Dragon’s Tear that life itself is also magic means that a world that implied to have no magic for years would mean the extinction of all life (Perhaps resulting in the wasteland we saw in the Season 5 finale). There may be something I’ll probably do at some point on a certain different blog. But even then, that may likely be a one-time thing and probably come around the time the series is starting to air.

That said, just because I’m continuing with mainly G4 content doesn’t mean I disapprove of G5. In fact, my non-spoilers thoughts on the movie is I think it is a good start for this new generation. There are questions I have that I’m not sure will be answered (Though many of those questions are the same ones I had in my Trailer/Preliminary thoughts) quickly enough. But the movie is structured well enough, in fact it’s probably a better movie as a whole compared to any of the movies G4 had (The 2017 movie, Rainbow Roadtrip, and all 4 Equestria Girls movies). As the 2017 movie was fun, but it jumped around a lot, sometimes scenes transitioning too fast. And while Rainbow Roadtrip may have been this on purpose, the entirely slice-of-life story taking up a long length… made it something of a less interesting plot to follow. It feels like some of that special could of been cut to at least a two-parter length and keep the same beats they hit. And while i have a soft spot for the 3rd and 4th Equestria Girls movies, I’ll always say a full-length pony adventure feels better suited for what I want to see out of MLP then spin-off movies with high school movie cliches and weird pony/human world shenanigans.

So movie-wise I’m not a G4 purist. It’ll take some time to see how Gen 5 compares to Friendship is Magic when we get to the series. As I feel it’d take a lot for it to surpass G4 in my mind. But I’m going to try to be as fair as possible and judge on it’s own merits. The implied connection to G4 by referring to G4 being ancient Equestria is going to naturally get the staff and hasbro pressured by fans to tell us what happened in-between the generations. Because that’s the trap they put the writers in when they made it so they want to try to say it’s in the same universe. That’s the double-edged sword Hasbro chose to have, trying to appease the G4 fanbase and keep at least some of them around. But at the cost of questions both nitpicky (Such as character design being inconsistent) or actual honest questions that need to be known (Why did magic disappear, and what happened to the Alicorns) for some of us to truly see this as the same Equestria.

After the break, I’ll have more spoilery thoughts

Even for a brief moment, it was nice seeing the Mane 6 and 2D animation. The former because of course those are the ponies many of us that saw all of G4 loved. And the latter, because while the animation wasn’t bad in this movie. I’m one of those who’d prefer to have 2D animation in an animated film. As in most cases aside from Pixar, it’s just a strong preference of mine. If this had the animation of the 2017 MLP movie but otherwise everything else was generally the same here, I feel that would of have been great.

I wish they didn’t have to have Sunny’s dad die off-screen, as he seems like he could of been a compelling character. And not to mention if perhaps he has any connection the “ancient” days in any fashion. But *sigh* I get it, it’s an old trope where part of the character’s offscreen growth is not having their parent(/s) around.

On a side note there’s quite a few times during the beginning of the movie that somewhat foreshadow what happens to Sunny later. 3 times where she had a fake horn and wings on her. Once in the flashback, then 2 separate times when she’s doing her protest where she has her own costumed wings and horn. As well as the helmet and mechanical wings.

Also, there’s no way around it. Some of the discussions this movie are going to get quite political. (Namely one part of Sunny’s song that could be seen as having a double meaning of a jab at Trumpsts regarding “Building your wall”) From the very premise in the early times, we know that the inspiration for the story was last year’s Black Lives Matter protests. Which honestly, I do support the message they’re going for. Having an anti-racism message to tell kids from the very beginning and making a focus on it is important when in G4 it only got briefly touched upon in Bridle Gossip and the Heath’s Warming Eve play. Although it certainly rose up to some form of prominence with Season 8 and onward. Still, while you can argue if G4 executed the anti-racism message well. it does come with something of a problem that the series finale left Equestria in the least divided it’s ever been.

And personally, I feel it’s a terrible interpretation of time to say “Well, it’s a realistic take. Racism has existed for years in our world. Same should go for the ponies” and while yes, racism is still rampant in today’s world. That said, that ignores that if we went from The Last Problem to the start of G5. There’s a huge difference between our world and Equestria. There is no ancient civilization that we look at like “Yeah, those were the golden days of world peace” when normally the “Golden age” was reserved for the high classes of Ancient Greece or Rome. It was most decidedly not perfect, with slavery rampant and wars for the sake of expanding an empire. While if you look at The Last Problem’s Equestria, you not only have peace between the three main types of ponies. But you literally have non-pony citizens in Equestria. You can see a dragon handing off a flower to a pony which can imply cross-species romantic relations. With the Friendship school still going strong, and was the reason that the world was saved in The Ending of the End. While perhaps it may be too glowing to say that future is perfect for everyone even in-universe. It’s certainly a hell of a lot better outlook then comparing to how we view even the so called Golden age of ancient civilizations. The Last Problem’s Equestria implies it looks to ally with every country outside of Equestria, not conquer them.

So it should still be a valid question on just how this world collapses to the point it gets to where G5 is at the start. I at least assume that it’s not the fault at all of any of the Mane 6 nor Twilight. Or at least I hope it isn’t, as I’d rather the MLP fanbase not have to deal with a The Last Jedi Luke Skywalker situation. (Where after the joyful end of the original trilogy, things go wrong as Luke almost murders the son of one of his best friends and his sister despite trying to hard and succeeding at redeeming his father who at that point in the canon was a galaxy-wide known ruthless mass-murderer.) I assume we’re at a point where everyone of the Mane 6 sans maybe Twilight are presumed dead. And even in Twilight’s case, there’s a chance that G5 decides to say that G4 overestimated the whole Alicorn immortality thing. Though I wouldn’t put it past Hasbro to have some event where the Mane 5 of G5 meet the Mane 6 in some special event whether that’s a a Season finale or a sequel movie/special. Where either the Mane 6 return in a limbo situation similar to the Pillars at the end of Season 7 or Time travel gets involved. They may even string us along on answering just what in the heck happened until they involve a meet-up with the Mane 6 in that way. Though I hope they don’t, I’d really like the beginning of the series (Or I guess this supposed special coming up in Spring supposedly?) starts to answer some questions. G5 should get a chance to stand on it’s own, but I hope the writers are actually well aware there will be so many questions people have and address them in the show. A cynical part of me feels like they’re likely to string us along until at least the Season 1 finale.

Onto the characters for a bit. I think Izzy Moonbow was absolutely the most stand-out character in the whole movie. She was energetic, funny, and aside from “The pegasi are bad news” she along with Zipp and Sunny were the most averse to the way the world was. She was already the most popular due to the tennis ball memes. But now it feels like she legit stands on her own and most certainly deserves to be the most popular character of G5 thus far. Behind her in a bit of a surprise to me was Zipp, who I thought would be mainly a Rainbow Dash-expy. Though she really helps out Izzy and Sunny in Zephyr Heights. Despite having Twilight be my favorite pony from the very beginning of G4 all the way to the end, I didn’t feel as strongly about Sunny for some reason. So she’s in the middle of the pack, she could grow on me later. I just don’t know if I click with her as much as I did with Twilight. As for the last two, while I don’t hate either of them. Either one could be the lowest of the 5 for one reason or another. Pipp (Although I will say she's probably my favorite character design out of the 5) feels like she doesn’t do a whole lot in the movie and it takes until she’s forced to be an outlaw because the other choice was to get imprisoned like her mother was. So she may come off as quite pretentious, though it’s arguable Rarity was the same way early in G4. But she definitely grew later. Could be the same case for Pipp. And as for Hitch, he has shining moments in the film. But what might hurt him is the fact he was such a bad friend to Sunny up until the campfire scene. “I’m the last real friend you have. You really want to lose me too?” is not a healthy friendship. Hitch may have been Sunny’s friend the longest, but it definitely feels like Izzy connected immediately. I don’t know if this show will get into shipping any of the main characters between each other mid-show, but if they do. I hope it’s between Izzy and Sunny currently, cause Hitch and Sunny just gives bad vibes even with Hitch getting better later.

None of the songs I felt were particularly too special. Though I think the closest was Sprout’s “Danger, Danger” song that has similarities to Smells Like Teen Spirit in some parts of the song since I tend towards more rock/metal-esque music.

I touched upon it earlier, but there’s perhaps a stand-out reason for why the G5 movie outdid the 2017 MLP Movie. They have the typical “Our heroic group splits after a sad moment before coming together again for the climatic good end” in Sunny seeing that that the two crystals don’t instantly bring magic back, and when Twilight left the group after an argument that happened with Twilight trying to take a pearl. They perform the same purpose in the movie. But the crystals not working, crushing Sunny’s hope for a little while works better into the story. Where as Twilight’s part frustratingly brought the sea pony scene to an end too quickly and/or doesn’t feel right of Twilight to have done that. It felt forced in the 2017 movie, but works out in the G5 movie. Especially since a part of it is that it’s not the crystals themselves capable of bringing magic back. But it’s the journey going after the crystals that brings the ponies themselves their magic back.

Just a small note on dictator Sprout, he tries to cause a war. Though admittedly the film seems to treat him as a joke the entire time despite his seriously evil ambitions. With the only repercussions is he gets a wishy-washy answer on if he was a good sheriff from his mom. I don’t quite know how I feel about that yet, but I wonder what they’ll have in mind for Sprout given his actions. He and his mom are the only ones that feel like a true antagonist. Though they seem to be ok with things fast when the magic comes back.

But anyway on to the ending, we see that Sunny becomes an Alicorn. Which I guess with no other real Alicorns around, I guess it makes sense to alicornify her since she’s the real leader behind what united the leaders of each type of pony again. Though there is of course this weird thing where her horn and wings don’t seem like as much a part of her body compared to very obvious connected wings on Twilight when she got hers. Sunny keeps her horn and wings to the end of the movie, and has colored streaks in her hair. Though I do wonder if that;s truly permanent. If it is permanent, I suppose at least they got to have a headstart and have it established at the end of the introductory movie rather then have it shock people at the end of a shortened 3rd season. I still feel like Twilight had well earned her alicornhood considering that besides what she did in the series. She has a whole childhood and time as a teenager learning under Celestia. Which had to mean something, and I’m not sure Celestia just leaving her to live the rest of her days with her friends in ponyville was that. Sunny has no doubt been trying countless time to try to spread friendship throughout her life even after the tragedy of her father’s passing. So there’s no doubt she’s been through a lot, and may indeed be worthy of being an Alicorn at this point. Though in terms of screentime before Alicornhood it's definitely a lot less then Twilight had. And it is at least nice to see that it is possible for non-unicorns to become one. (The only case of that we sort of got was a children's book that may or may not be canon that implied Cadence was a pegasus before she ascended)

Though you have to wonder if the visual differences such as Sunny’s alicorn horn and wings, the cutie mark only on one side (Yes I know that’s how it was normally in the MLP generations before G4. But a distinct visual difference between shows is still noticeable even if the context of G4’s cutie marks on both sides of the flank was about it being easier on the puppets for Flash), and how animals can have wings or weird round shapes such as those bunnies when G4 has normal looking animals. There’s enough striking visual differences for any nitpicky G4 to say “This isn’t the same Equestria”. And if someone tries to say maybe some sort of evolution happened. That’s still trying to put a little too much real world logic on this fantasy world. And evolution tends to take millions of years to have such dramatic changes. Not 1000 years or so, there should still be normal looking animals at this point and time. And these small details are probably going to be the things most ignored but nonetheless can build a case that this isn’t the same Equestria. Even if they touch on the important questions like how magic disappeared and what happened to the Mane 6, there will be details they make different that will add to the case that this is it’s own universe if it doesn’t quite matchup with what was remembered about G4. There will be fans who will be that nitpicky to call G5 out of continuity for small details like that. That is again the trap they put themselves in when they decided to try to say it’s the same Equestria.

All-in-all though, I think that’s at least a good enough chunk about my thoughts on the movie to end off here. If there’s something I missed or something from the movie you’d like me to give a particular opinion about or elaborate on something feel free to ask me here. G5 is indeed off to a good start, just I will be along the many hoping some questions get answered sooner then later. And I’m not sure I’m confident in getting anywhere until a Season finale or a 2nd movie. And it’ll be a year before the series starts proper (Though again I guess there’s a 44 minute special coming in Spring to try to hold us over). But I could definitely see G5 finding it's own following, now there's just the inevitable clashes between some of the more vocal fans of each generation bickering at eachother. But hoping there will be enough that take the movie's lessons on divisiveness to heart and be able to enjoy both even if there may be preferences.

#mlp #my little pony #g5 #mlp g5 #netflix #my little pony the next generation #my little pony movie #generation 5

[kitkatopinions]

So, let’s talk about James’s semblance, Mettle.

Ironwood's Semblance, Mettle, strengthens his resolve which allows him to carry through with his decisions, helping him hyper-focus (RWBY wiki)

Actual quotes on Ironwood’s semblance from the RTX RWBY Panel.

“So Ironwood does have a semblance. We - it’s in the show, it’s in like little bits, you can kind of see it. It’s more like a passive semblance that runs in the background.” Eddy Rivas

“The whole thing is just this kind of like, iron resolve-slash-will that like kind of powers him to - almost like a very stubbornly, narrow-set focus like mind set on things, to kind of like push himself to do what he’s decided he’s gonna do-” Eddy Rivas

“It kind of helps him like, hyper focus,” Kerry Shawcross

“Or like, pushing through something like searing the flesh off your arm. If like, this is the goal he needs to accomplish, everything else just goes by the wayside.” Miles Luna

“So that’s kind of running in the background of seven and eight a little bit.” Eddy Rivas

“So it felt a little weird and we just never put it on the page, but you can actually see it happening.” Eddy Rivas

“We could possibly get it out later, but we thought it’d be more fun for you to be able to watch volume eight, and go back and watch volume 7 knowing that.” Kerry Shawcross

So I’m going to be talking about some of the problems I think there are with Ironwood’s semblance and it not being included in the show. I’m going to be very critical of and bashing RWBY, and there’s probably going to be CRWBY bashing too. If you don’t want to see any of that or if you’re against any sort of pro Ironwood content, don’t read this post or interact.

So let’s try to piece together from these statements what Ironwood’s semblance is.

It’s a passive semblance. As far as I know, the only other passive semblance we have to judge how those work is Qrow. Unlike active semblances, Qrow’s passive semblance can’t be controlled, and can only be increased at will, but always runs at frequencies severe enough that Qrow thinks of it as controlling his life and preventing him from being able to be close to his family. From the way Qrow’s semblance behaves, we can extrapolate that James’s semblance likely works in the same way, and in the panel, it’s described as ‘running in the background.’ I.E. He can’t turn it off, it runs through his entire life, he can only increase it in certain times.

It’s described as hyper-focusing, stubbornness, narrow-set focus, being unable to concentrate or care about things outside of his set goal, and pushing himself in doing what he’s decided he has to do.

There are several reasons I want to talk about this semblance.

1. This semblance might’ve been newly invented for season 7 and 8. Why do I think this? Eddy Rivas says ‘I believe we called it Mettle’ in the panel (emphasis is mine,) and is talking like he was included in inventing it, even though he became a co-writer for volume 7. Also they don’t mention if it affected Ironwood pre-volume 7, they only mention it being seen or considering including it in volume 7 and 8. Also, the voice actor of James Ironwood didn’t know about this semblance until a fan told him. It’s possible that this semblance was written earlier, but I doubt it and I think that this semblance was invented in the conception of volumes 7 and 8 with Eddy Rivas being involved. As such, I’m going to view everything pre-volume 7 as actions we were intended to consider James’s actual character, and everything post-volume 6 as actions influenced by his semblance.

2. The fact that it’s not included is lazy. This is a character defining semblance. This colors literally everything that Ironwood does in seasons seven and eight, this is a major game changer, this changes any understanding of the character. I’ve said this before, but fans shouldn’t have to do homework to understand the story. Many fans don’t want to go searching through panels, wikis, books, and zoom meetings to try and piece together why a character might be the way they are or how the magic systems work. The fact that the semblance isn’t included has led to confusion about how the semblance works. Some RWBY fans will present the way they decided the semblance works and get actively angry at fans who headcanon that it works differently or are upset with the way the creators themselves described the semblance. Other fans act like RWBY critics who think Ironwood’s fall to villainy is hard to track are stupid for not knowing this completely unincluded detail, and other fans villainize the semblance and use it as a reason why Ironwood is an inherently bad person. On the flip side, James Ironwood fans are rightly confused at this semblance that seems like it could be an explanation for the sudden shifts in his character. Some of them don’t understand why this semblance isn’t explained and at least treated as a part of his fall and treated more sympathetically. The fact that it wasn’t explained in the show leads to fans coming up with their own conclusions, and then arguing over what version is viable or what the collective fandom should accept.

3. The semblance itself is a lazy explanation for his villainy. The creators didn’t write a convincing hero-to-villain story. Ironwood’s leaps in morality are made with very little groundwork or explanation, he goes from ‘doing what he feels needs to be done’ to threatening to bomb the remaining citizens of Mantle in a completely irrational time with laughter and smiles over the course of a season that didn’t really put the focus on that progression. The semblance wasn’t explained or even mentioned and Ironwood wasn’t treated with sympathy or understanding, because we were meant to hate him and see him as the enemy to the protagonists, who we were meant to see as completely right. But the semblance is then an easy explanation that ‘fills out the plot holes’ if CRWBY is asked, that they can use to justify the fall to villainy - or use to suddenly redeem James if they decide they want to. And as I said before, this semblance is already being used by the mega-fans to explain the fall to villainy and throw it in the faces of any critics. Once again, it feels like the writers are just coming up with whatever they can to make up for their shitty writing, while they also rely on their fans to fill in the gaps and ‘explain’ to critics exactly how they think the semblance works and act like the critics or bashers should’ve just come to the same conclusion they did.

4. The semblance is problematic because of how villainized James is specifically for things like his semblance. The semblance is literally the best possible explanation for Ironwood’s fall and the only one I’ve heard that makes any sense. But his semblance is literally described by the creators as ‘hyper-focusing.’ The fact that his semblance is treated as something that makes him more of a villain and something that aids in his destructive behavior that isn’t ever treated with an ounce of sympathy or understanding, is a really bad look. There are real-life people who hyper-fixate on things and can’t help it, and while James’s semblance might not be hyper-fixating exactly, CRWBY still hurt people with the way they talked about this semblance and how they included it in Ironwood’s fall. I’m not diagnosed and I’m therefore never sure of this, but I think I’m ADHD and hyper-fixate on things (like RWBY, lol.) I’ve never been sure exactly how I view Ironwood’s semblance, but hearing the way that the CRWBY head writers talk about it made me feel like I should keep that side of me from people who don’t know me well like my co-workers. Whether or not it was intended, that’s what CRWBY did, and there are many more people than just me who were hurt or bothered by this personally.

5. Since I’m assuming this semblance was a new addition to James in season 7 and 8, it really honestly feels disconnected. It’s a passive semblance, it’s meant to affect James during the course of his whole life because he can’t turn it off. But in volumes 2 and 3, he seems honestly receptive to Oz, listens to him, never goes too far, never seems too stubborn, never seems to ignore other problems to focus on one thing more than what’s perfectly normal for regular people. Before literally near the tail end of volume 7, Ironwood acted like a regular person unaffected by a semblance at all, who just happens to be a determined person facing hard situations. It really feels like the semblance was invented to explain the jump to villainy, and then used to explain how he did things like sear the flesh off of his arm in the Watts fight to be like ‘look, this didn’t come out of nowhere! There it is in this scene!’ which is really lazy. And the disjointed feeling between Ironwood from his first appearance and Ironwood post-shooting Oscar still takes you out of the story and makes you go ‘wait, what’s going on here?’ You shouldn’t be able to see the hand of the author, but it was very clear to me that the writers just wanted villain!Ironwood and just did whatever the hell they wanted to get there whether or not it made sense or what they had to force or forget to do it.

6. This semblance... Really makes Qrow look like a jerk. It makes everyone look like a jerk, but it especially makes Qrow look like a jerk. There’s a very, very strong probability that Qrow never had any idea about this semblance that Ironwood couldn’t control. But after spending volumes sympathizing with Qrow and feeling bad for him and understanding that a lot of his problems stemmed from his horrible lot in life that he wrongly blamed himself for, to see him ready to kill a former friend who is even more affected by and ruled by a semblance than Qrow ever was made me seriously annoyed with the writing. In my opinion, they should’ve had Qrow know about his semblance, know that it was affecting his every choice, be deeply sympathetic and bothered by the situation, and be trying to get out of jail so he could break Ironwood’s aura and jolt him out of his affected state. It would’ve been much, much better in my opinion, for Ironwood’s character, Qrow’s character, and the story as a general whole. The way that villain Ironwood was done just is not interesting to me in any way. Not only did CRWBY miss any opportunity to present a compelling hero-turned-villain story, but they also invented a reason for Ironwood to be deeply sympathetic and easily redeemed and then made no one understand that this was a problem and seem to be going out of their way to act like it’s not there at all to make Ironwood a full villain! Why give him the semblance at all if they were going to not use it and expect everyone to want him to be a full, incredibly hard to redeem, EVIL VILLAIN?

I seriously can’t understand CRWBY’s choices. In my opinion, they should’ve either made Ironwood a sympathetic hero forced into doing villainous actions by this semblance that they should’ve rephrased in terms of how it works, or they should’ve just left him with no explained semblance.

Also, I think Mettle is a stupid name.

#rwde #rwby criticism #anti rwby #anti-rwby #anti crwby #rwby hate #pro ironwood #ironwood defense #pro-ironwood #rwby bashing #this post contains rwby hate

[ruby-whistler]

I recently took your latest survey and I was having some thoughts like I tend to do and thought I would try to understand your POV better and give some insight into mine. I wouldn’t consider myself a “apologist” for any character and actually really hate how the term is used, but in general I disagree with the main opinion I’ve seen on your blog which is that Dream should get a redemption arc. However, my reasoning isn’t one that I see you commonly argue against. (Being that dream shouldn’t get a redemption arc because he’s done bad things.) You always ask some interesting questions, I enjoy taking your surveys, I’ve done all the ones I’ve seen on my dash. So I’d like to in turn ask for your opinion on some things and see your opinion on my POV, if that is ok with you. I just find it interesting to discuss.

the view I see a lot of Dream apologist have is that everyone should have the opportunity for a good ending, which is true.

But I feel like it kind of misses the point of well, we are discussing characters, not real people. Now of course, what we say and write about characters can still have an impact, but I feel like sometimes this fandom in particular goes too far down the route of seeing these characters as people. To the point where anything said about the character is seen as proof of that persons morals, and not something said about a story.

For example, going back to the point about how everyone should have the opportunity to heal, I think that is true. But the fact of the matter is, not everyone will. It’s not realistic. So it makes sense that in stories, not ever y antagonist will have a redemption. I think there’s a huge difference between saying you don’t want a character to heal in a story, and saying you don’t want someone to in real life. For me it completely depends on how well it would work narratively in the story, not how much I think the particular character deserves it.

There’s a reason why the whole “power of friendship” trope is often mocked. It’s because it’s anticlimactic. It takes away all the stakes, leaving you with a rather stale, and hard-to-believe ending. People who have had a considerable downward spiral often can’t be completely derailed by a simple “no, this isn’t right” or a brief act of kindness. To better explain this I think it would help to take a step back from the story and characters we are attached to and just take a look at different stories that are pretty well known. Just to kind of put what I’m trying to say into perspective better.

I’ll take Marvels Infinity war/endgame as a example here because I think a lot of parallels can be drawn from Thanos to c!dream. (And I used to be really into marvel.) What with the whole “greater good” “one big happy family” thing they want to achieve through harm, murder, and total control. Also the disc war finale was literally pulled from endgame lol. With both characters we can see they have at the very least a not terrible motive. If you look closely enough it’s possible to sympathize with them. Less so for me with c!dream simply because we haven’t gotten a real solid backstory or reasoning from him, besides pieced together fanon that we have no real way of determining the accuracy of yet. But I get that some people do really like the character. But keeping along those lines of comparing the two, they’ve both done a ton a very terrible things, and don’t seem to feel any regret for them. (Actually, scratch that, there are scenes that imply thanos at least did feel somewhat bad about what he was doing, another reason that he’s more sympathetic for me. Of course you could claim that c!dream is less emotional or just doesn’t show it, which could be true, but there’s also the claim that he just doesn’t care, which could also very well be true. Again, we sadly don’t have too much insight to his character, which is a shame in my opinion. I’d like the see more of the writers intent.)

So the reason for my comparison is to ask this question, taking away all bias. do you think that giving thanos a redemption arc would of been the right way to take the story. Again, I think both their arcs are easily comparable, seeing as the dsmp pretty much took direct inspiration from those movies in the latter part of season 2. This might be a bit harder to answer if you haven’t seen it but you could easily look up a summary if you wanted to, or just take my word for it that they are pretty similar lol.

Becuase, if the answer is no, then I’m not sure how much some of the points you’ve made on this blog hold up. Besides being based off your liking of the character, which is valid. (there’s a reason why fanfic and fanart exists) but that doesn’t mean that such a ending would be good for a story. Again, I can understand why you would want a redemption for c!dream, just like I want my favorite characters to have a happy ending, but that doesn’t mean I actually want it to happen. Above all else I want a good story.

Just to clarify, I’m not asking if you think these characters deserve redemption. I’m asking if you think it would work well narratively and give a solid conclusion. Because, like I mentioned earlier, this is a story. We arnt discussing the fate of real people here. Having a villain not be redeemed is not the same as saying people who have done really bad things should not be redeemed. Likewise, having a villain be redeemed isn’t saying what they did was ok. Villain redemptions can be well done, but they have to make sense narratively and be satisfying. In this case, I personally believe a redemption for Dream would not be interesting or compelling in the slightest, for the same reason I don’t think endgame ending in a redemption arc for thanos would be interesting or compelling in the slightest, despite the fact that I like both characters.

Part of the reason I brought up marvel at all is I want to kind of reframe the story, because I feel like this fandom has a oddly unique way of viewing the characters and story. Like I mentioned, the characters are often discussed like they are real people. Discussing c!dreams fate is treated like your discussing the fate of a real man, not a character in a story. I think there are some possible reasons for this. For one, all the characters are somewhat attached to their steamers counterpart. So, we feel more attached to them as a whole, and they feel more like real people. Another reason could be that you can watch almost any perspective you like, and leave out any ones you wish to as well. It’s a bit like a choose your own adventure book. So, in a way, pretty much every character could be considered a protagonist.

Which is where I can see a possible argument against my point. In a story where every character is the protagonist, the only satisfying outcome would be one that pleases fans of every POV. Which is where I can see this argument take place of “well, do you think ___ deserves a good ending? Then what about ___?? Surely you must think everyone does, or you just have bad morals!”. It’s a unique situation that I don’t think I’ve seen before. Of course, everyone has their favorites in a story, but the difference here is there are no supporting characters or solid antagonist.

And honestly, I think originally Wilbur saw the possibility of that problem arising, which is why he once stated that he wanted the characters to serve the narrative, not the other way around. It’s interesting that we didn’t have nearly as much discussion like this back when Wilbur was writing, because the story was much more conventional. But by the time we got to season three, that sentiment had been pretty much completely thrown out the window, leaving us with what we have today.

This is why I personally prefer the previous narrative. On one hand, this current way of story telling is very unique, and has a lot of potential, but comes with a lot of downsides. Conventional story structure just,,, doesn’t work out as well. Which is why I personally see the best course of action as using Dream as the overall antagonist. Giving Dream a tragic backstory, hidden motives, and eventual redemption arc just wouldn’t do much for the story in my opinion. Sure, it would make people who enjoy and sympathize with his character happy, but it runs into the problem of all the storylines being very separate. Like yeah we can have a separate redemption arc for each and every character, but I just don’t see how we would get an actual story out of that. I think a central villain could really pull things together, but at the moment it’s unclear if that is what they are going for. I guess we’ll just have to see where things go? Maybe there’s some answers to our questions in the aforementioned Dream lore stream? I personally believe he is being written as a central antagonistic character, but I can see where the opinion that he is not comes from, despite not personally wanting the story to take that direction.

I know this is very long, and I apologize, but seeing as you often make surveys and things asking for others povs, which I would imagine results in pages of paragraphs, I figured you wouldn’t be opposed to this. I’d like to hear your opinion/thoughts, but if you don’t want to respond I am fine with that.

alrigh, putting this one onder the ol’ cut because the ask is long enough /lh

so, i don’t actually take “everyone deserves to heal” as an argument why c!dream should have a redemption arc - more like an anti-argument for why he shouldn’t. my main reasons for why i believe he should be redeemed is 1. it’s the only thing that makes sense for the story 2. it’s the thing that makes the most sense for the character 3. he just genuinely deserves better after what he’s gone through 4. at this point anything else would send a really bad message 5. he’s the perfect character with the perfect setup to get one. it’s not just because i like him.

i don’t take what people say about characters deserving redemption as proof of their real life morals, or an example for how they’d treat real people, however i can still say these takes are atrocious, make no sense, or even upsetting and make me want to interact with the person less. they’re often born from bias and are completely illogical from both an objective and a philosophical sense, which is why i speak out about them, not for real life morality issues. this fandom has some of the most ridiculous and unsettling views of the story i’ve seen.

stories are not meant to be 100% realistic. art is supposed to have an improvement of real life - redemption arcs in stories that are well-written aren’t invalidated just because in real life, people don’t become better more often than not. if all bad people became good people, that would be cool actually - it’s not what’s gonna happen in real life, but doesn’t mean i should be opposed to it if it’s pulled off well.

alright, full disclosure, i have never watched a marvel movie in my life. i don’t plan to, really, i read books instead of watching movies most of the time. with the limited knowledge i have of thanos, i’d say some parallels can be drawn, but they’re not the same character at all, nor is their personality, story, or narrative the same. we have gotten confirmation on the fact his goal is peace and for people to get along, and i don’t know what you mean by “pieced together fanon”, but people believe or deny what they want, so whatever. i’d argue he’s easier to sympathize with, but then again, i haven’t watched marvel movies, so in my mind thanos is less a “sympathize” and more of a “understand his motives” type of guy.

i think that if thanos was a character in an environment of less than thirty people, with a home he owned and his family torn apart and divided, becoming more and more ruthless in attempts to stop people from starting long-winded conflict, who has proven again and again to care about people, but employ horrible tactics less despite and more as a result of it, and was defeated and abused in a cruel prison system for several months, while the narrative deliberately shows of his humanity - then yes, i think he should be redeemed. if that is not thanos, then perhaps you should’ve chosen a better comparison, or not used one at all.

seems very out of character to me. perhaps if you think c!dream and thanos are really the same person, you should start considering actual canon more than your own feelings about the character. just a suggestion.

i myself think that everyone on the smp deserves to heal and be redeemed, however i think c!dream will be the only person to get an arc in the upcoming months, because everything is pointing towards the fact and at this point it is pretty obvious the story has picked that option to go with. this is purely story and narrative-based, and my feelings match up with it more than the other way around.

i believe that a redemption arc for c!dream would, because of recent as well as older developments, be the only compelling and interesting writing choice in the upcoming arc. you disagreeing - well, i guess that’ll be your opinion until you’re proven wrong or not. however i strongly disagree because of the themes, narrative and characterization that seem to strongly disagree with you on the subject as well.

cc!wilbur’s literal last wish when leaving the writing was to keep all characters morally grey, no overall antagonist or protagonist. and the writers did a hell of a good job with that, however i guess the fandom wasn’t ready for darker and more philosophically difficult themes to be explored so they promptly switched to a pure black-and-white view of the story (which cc!wilbur straight up criticized them for), i think to try and gain a moral high-ground or something?? idk, they ruined the thing for themselves though, it was definitely not the writers’ fault.

there is no “the story” from a narrative stand-point. all of the characters have wildly different narratives and outlooks. if c!dream’s redemption wouldn’t do much for the story you are watching? honestly why should i care, the dream smp is more complex than that.

if you think c!dream should stay the overall antagonist, maybe you’ve already lost track of the lore. quackity at the moment seems to be the character with the most potential to make a negative impact on several characters’ narrative (hence becoming an antagonist of at least part of the overall story) while c!dream is stuck being the literal victim of his in a prison that is deliberately framed by the writers as dehumanizing and corrupt. if “this character’s vulnerability is being exposed and he is being actively traumatized and outdone by a different villainous character” doesn’t scream “extremely likely redemption arc” to you, i don’t know what will.

c!dream hasn’t been the “central antagonist” for the past six months and there are like three characters already fighting over filling in the spot. if you don’t want the narrative to take that direction? i am sorry, but i don’t think there is much you can do about it.

#my asks #anon #long post

[medea10]

My Review of Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni SOTSU

Prior thoughts here…

Look, I love Higurashi. I really do! But I can’t be the only person to hate Satoko Hojo when it was discovered what she did in Gou. That really tainted Higurashi Gou, which was doing okay up until that point. Now, does Satoko redeem herself and realize that she was petty, vindictive, misunderstood everything, and is absolutely in the wrong? Judging by what some of the seiyuus said after recording and reading the script, they felt weird and off by the material.

That’s very troubling!

Moving on! Our main story tonight is about Hinamizawa. A rural Japanese town with a rich history in religion, colorful characters which you can tell from the hair, and annoying, screeching cicadas! We see you, you dirt-bath twats!

Sorry, I really wanted to do a John Oliver moment here.

PREVIOUSLY ON HIGURASHI GOU: Rika’s suffering has gotten exponentially worse than in previous seasons. We’ve seen Rika die continuously and worse than what was shown to us in the original series. Not only that, but she was murdered by people who never caused Rika any harm prior including Akasaka, Akane Sonozaki, Chief Kimiyoshi, Ooishi, and even Keiichi. Who is to blame for this? That would be Rika’s best friend Satoko Hojo. Satoko was willing to make Rika happy by going along with Rika’s endeavors of leaving Hinamizawa and attending a prestigious all-girls school. And while Rika adjusted to her surroundings perfectly, Satoko was slipping through the cracks. Rika offered a helping hand to her, but Satoko was so stubborn and jumped to every wrong conclusion, thinking Rika abandoned her.

It wasn’t until the girls took a trip back to Hinamizawa that Satoko’s world changed. In the altar of Oyashiro, she is transferred to the limbo and comes face-to-face with a deity much like Hanyuu. We’re pretty sure her name is Featherine…but for some reason Satoko called her Eua so I guess that’s her name in the Higurashi universe. Eua gives Satoko the special power to control her fate and she literally abuses it at every turn to force Rika to stay in Higurashi and change every outcome from every timeline Rika’s been through.

SOTSU: I think we were all thinking throughout the Gou series, we haven’t watched enough episodes of Rena losing her shit and go on a murderous rampage. Or for that matter, we haven’t even watched Mion strap someone down and take off their fingernails! So remember episodes 1-4 of Gou? Apparently the first 3 episodes of Sotsu show how Rena lost her mind in that timeline, the next three episodes followed Mion’s descent into madness, and we follow that up with Teppei living with Satoko. Gou only told part of the story. Satoko drugged all of these people in order to screw with Rika. I mean no one needed to see Rika get strangled and thrown in the outdoor toilet. Yet we got that scene. Thanks series, thanks a fuck-ton for that.

And yes, we indeed got the fingernail scene.

But don’t get it twisted with what I just said. Only some of these scenes are new compared to what was given and shown in Gou. To be mean about it, Sotsu is on par with Endless Eight from Haruhi Suzumiya. But give Endless Eight some credit. It was only eight episodes. We’ve got 13 episodes of almost the same exact crap we watched six months prior in the previous season.

MORE REDEMPTION: Last arc, we kinda got redemptions of several characters near the end from Miyo Takano and Teppei Hojo. I obviously didn’t believe the latter. Teppei was scum in the original series. Not a redeeming thing about him and everyone knows it. This character however was runner-up as scum of Hinamizawa.

Rina Mamiya or Ritsuko dated Rena’s father and it set Rena off. In the original series, Rena’s father would spend butt-loads of money on Ritsuko. And the original plan was a bit of a badger game. The man would spend amounts of cash on Ritsuko until eventually her real man comes in and yells at the other man for messing with his girl until he pays the real man off to leave him alone. And that system was put out by Ritsuko and Teppei.

Sotsu worked a little differently. Due to Teppei’s…redemp…redemp…Nope, can’t do it! Teppei’s out of the picture and now Ritsuko is working in a gentleman’s club. Rena’s father goes there constantly and showers Ritsuko with gifts. Ritsuko gets concerned. That never happens. We see a shred of humanity with her. She mentions that she was raised by a single parent and came to Rena to convince her father to stop doing this. And if Satoko didn’t drug Rena, it would have been awesome to see this happen. I want Rena to be happy.

I WAS AFRAID OF THIS: As this season progressed, I noticed these previous arcs that we’re watching are coming from Satoko’s point of view. Unfortunately, it’s just making myself and many others lose every respect we once had for Satoko. She goes through different timelines drugging people and fucking with Rika. So once we got to the third arc, I was afraid of seeing something with my own eyes. Satoko faking abuse! She is not being abused by her uncle. She is not being abused by the townspeople nor her classmates. She is faking abuse to both piss off her uncle and worry her friends. That is some sick-ass shit!

ENDING: Up to this point, we watched Satoko’s hand in ruining Rika’s perfect timeline. During Higurashi Gou, we weren’t sure who the true culprit was. Higurashi Sotsu came in and had Satoko drug Rena, Mion, Detective Ooishi, Akasaka, Akane Sonozaki, Chief Kimiyoshi, and even Keiichi. Not just that, but lie and manipulate people, particularly in the second-to-last arc of Sotsu.

Many of us (myself included) were a little disappointed in the carryout of the story. Sotsu was essentially Gou, but from Satoko’s angle. In every other Higurashi story prior to this train-wreck, the timelines felt like they were their own story and not recycled garbage. It wasn’t until the episodes with Hanyuu leaving Rika that we got a few questions answered. The sword Hanyuu left Rika was in Oyashiro’s statue. It’s just that Satoko got to it first and a baby piece broke off, leaving Rika unsatisfied. Also, Rika’s flashbacks are giving her some clues. Or could it be Hanyuu leaving Rika the clues?

Hanyuu went to investigate these messed up timelines and sure enough, she encountered Eua. But Eua is clearly more powerful and has an upper-hand in her own realm so she does overpower Hanyuu. Hanyuu learns the truth that Satoko was behind everything and that Eua has been manipulating her along the way. She also watches Rika fall into despair and give up her future goal of one day leaving Hinamizawa. Instead, Rika is going to stay in Hinamizawa and Satoko gets what she wants. Never count out luck when Hanyuu is involved! Rika has been getting flashbacks of the timeline when Ooishi went on the rampage. And sure enough, one of those flashes were of Satoko shooting Rika in the face to make sure she was dead.

Rika knows Satoko is the reason behind the influx of deaths in these timelines. What now?

Satoko kills Rika. REPEATEDLY! And it just goes from timeline to timeline, from Hinamizawa to St. Lucia, from the Cotton Drifting Festival to the classroom! Now, I will admit some of these fights were funny to watch. In one of those times, Satoko kills Rika and in the distance, Rena, Mion, and Keiichi are not noticing a damn thing. That was funny! And then you have Rika and Satoko killing each other over the fact that Satoko doesn’t want to study.

This episode-long slug-fest was like Peter Griffin vs. Ernie the Giant Chicken. It went on far too long. And it was worse because you know Satoko is in the wrong.

Yes, I am on Team Rika in this fight. Rika offered a hand to Satoko. Satoko refused help. Rika didn’t snitch on Satoko. Rika wants to go as far as humanly possible away from the town that caused her so much pain. If you spent hundreds of years in the same year, the same month, in the same town, suffering a myriad of ways to die, wouldn’t you want to take the next bus the fuck outta there? Satoko took a petty fight into a full-blown, time-leaping, friend-killing, witches and Gods holy war! Oh yeah, let’s look at Eua and Hanyuu. Eua seems to have the upper-hand here, but Hanyuu and Rika always have miracles on their side. It might be a 1 out of 1000 shot for them, but they have miracles coming out of their asses. Thankfully, Hanyuu was able to defeat Eua and the girls stopped their fight. After some wise words from Rena, the girls came to a sensible conclusion of giving each other some space to keep being friends.

Rika’s going to St. Lucia and Satoko isn’t. They will remain frenemies, I guess? Satoko will stalk Rika if she’s away too long or doesn’t phone home as often. Geez bitch, clingy much? And we end the series with the classic Higurashi song “You” as we see all the other minor characters we loved from the series. Ooishi is visiting his friend’s grave, Takano (not pregnant) and Tomitake coming back to town, Ritsuko’s alive, Teppei’s alive (and not a horrible human being anymore), everyone’s alive, and Satoko doesn’t learn her lesson. The bitch gets what she wants. This series is shit.

And what’s this? Of all the arcs for Satoshi to wake up and have Hinamizawa Syndrome clear up, it had to be this one! I can’t even begin to describe my disgust here. But I couldn’t because the scene was so fast, I had to contain myself.

OH MY FUCKING GOD! I FUCKING HATED THIS ARC! I HATED THIS ANIME! I HATED, HATED, HATED THIS ANIME! HATED IT! HATED EVERY SIMPERING STUPID VACANT AUDIENCE-INSULTING MOMENT OF IT!

Sorry to get all Roger Ebert on you guys but it had to be said.

Higurashi once had an art to telling the story with repeating and similar timelines. It made it feel like you’re not sitting through 13 episodes of something you already sat through with only a few minutes of new footage. Sotsu went the route of Haruhi Suzumiya’s Endless Eight. You fail, dude! That’s a fail! Each episode up until episode 13 or 14 is primarily the same shit we saw in Gou. With the exception of a few scenes like with Ritsuko, Kimiyoshi’s horrible torture, and evil Satoko moments, it was a shot-for-shot repeat from last season. And it was especially slow and repetitive during the Satoko abuse arc.

I know I went off in the last review about how much Satoko sucks, but she really fucking sucks here. Satoko wasn’t like this at all in the original series. She loved all of her friends, not just Rika. She loved her nii-nii! She cared for Keiichi and sees him as a pro-temp nii-nii. And she cared for Shion, Mion, and Rena. This season with Satoko all I see is manipulation of every character that cared for her, even the minor ones and only care about Rika. Satoshi wasn’t even a passing thought. In fact, not once did Satoko feel the need to talk about her nii-nii except when it was to manipulate Keiichi. She fakes everything! She faked her nii-nii talk with Keiichi, doesn’t give a crap about Shion’s love for her, faked being bullied and lying about it to a numerous amount of people, all to fuck with Rika!

Now then, this really upset a lot of fans. I mean, a fuck-ton a lot of fans. I’m just disappointed that this exists and will spend the next several anime seasons trying to forget about everything I watched here. Eventually, I’ll move the fuck on and pretend this didn’t exist and continue to rewatch the Studio Deen version and reading the manga. But some others aren’t so lucky. This really struck a nerve to those who have been with the franchise since day one. I have a friend that’s so depressed by Gou and Sotsu’s existence, I’ve never seen her this wrecked before!

I cannot give this a good review. I cannot recommend this. It is just unwatchable. Unfathomable! Inconceivable! Unbelievable! In fact, here’s a list of Higurashi stuff I would highly recommend watching or reading before you should ever touch Higurashi Gou and Sotsu.

Higurashi Visual Novel Higurashi Manga Any Higurashi video game Higurashi Season 1 & 2 (Studio Deen version) Higurashi Rei episodes 2-4 Higurashi Outbreak Higurashi Cat-Killing Special Higurashi Rei episodes 1 & 5 The live action TV series from 2016 Umineko no Naku Koro Ni (anime) A 10 hour loop of Keiichi’s sea bear dangling Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni Kira That one episode of Last Period featuring the cast of Higurashi Live Action Higurashi from 2008 Staring at a still-shot of Detective Ooishi wearing a thong from Higurashi Rei episode 1 for five minutes Scratching your neck until you see maggots come out

THEN…no, I don’t think you’re ready to watch Higurashi Gou and Sotsu.

Avoid it like the plague.

What a waste of Studio Passione’s semi-decent animation!

#anime review #Higurashi no Naku Koro ni #higurashi no naku koro ni sotsu #higurashi no naku koro ni gou #keiichi maebara #Rika Furude #satoko hojo #mion sonozaki #shion sonozaki #rena ryuugu #teppei hojo #miyo takano #eua

[bossbex]

5x06 Reaction

JARCHIE!!! I missed their interactions so much... like honestly in S4 they barely spoke.  I’m loving the “roommates” dynamic.  

Ok the kevin/fangs/toni apartment(?) is... amazing!!

I love how they hired actual teenagers (or close to it) to play the high school kids... since all the “teachers” were playing high school students, what, 3 episodes ago?? 

Ok mechanic Betty is SO HOT

DORITOS I AM CRYING AT THIS PRODUCT PLACEMENT

Veronica’s taking over the Blue Velvet!!! Why not reuse that set lmao

Thoughts on this initial barchie interaction: 

I’ve seen all the discourse about it seeming like Archie doesn’t care about Betty’s problems, or not taking them seriously, and people comparing Archie’s “oof - that sucks” to jughead’s “white noise” speech in 1x08 (which I thought was cringy AF and I even liked b*ghead at the time) and here’s what I’ll say: 

His “oof - that sucks” comment as MATCHING Betty’s tone - she says it kind of matter of factly and with a bit of an eyeroll, she does NOT seem very upset about it, and she is a grown ass adult who DOESN’T need Archie’s condolences in that moment - and Archie knows that. 

She then brings up Polly, and Archie ASKS A FOLLOW UP QUESTION: “didn’t your mom say she does this? Takes off for a couple of days” which shows that he is referring to a previous conversation about this - they’ve BEEN talking about it and he DOES care (not to mention they showed that he had texted her about Polly at the end of the last episode)

She says she’s trying not to panic - because she knows this is something Polly does and may not actually be in danger - SO HE OFFERS A DISTRACTION during a time when she is basically asking for one, and then SHE COMES UP WITH THE IDEA OF WHERE TO GO HAVE SEX

Anyway I have argued with enough people on twitter about this lol.. I feel strongly.  Also, this scene was super cute and both Archie and Betty look so good in it.  

I love Tabitha.  Smart, enterprising, witty... I’m all for the Jugitha pairing. (seriously though, is a ship name decided for them? I’ve seen Tabhead and Jabitha as well, lol.  

Uhhhhh ok this car sex scene? It somehow feels even more explicit than the shower scene?? The moaning and breathing?? HOW DARE THESE STONEWALL KIDS INTERRUPT THIS

LMAO NIGHT JOGGING

Is it just me or is Sheriff Keller looking really hot? Silver fox??  

I have to note that Archie’s hair colour looks SO BAD in this whole episode but especially this football scene with the Reggie confrontation.  It’s like, almost burgundy? But somehow bright orange at the same time? I hate it.  

Ok Cole is absolutely nailing this “down on his luck, beaten down” adult Jughead.  His character is funny all the sudden?? I love that he kept the money in the tip jar like OF COURSE

Ok Chad coming into Veronica’s class HE’S THE WORST!!! And then SITTING AT THE BACK I HATE HIM SO MUCH FOR THIS

Alright, now we have another scene that has people talking, which is where Archie meets Chad.  My thoughts: 

Archie clearly sizes up Chad.  I mean, he dated Veronica for 3-ish years (in the show’s timeline) so yeah, it’s normal to meet your ex’s new partner and size them up.  It read more like “he thinks Chads a douche” as opposed to “he’s jealous of Chad because he wants to be with V”.  

They show makes a point of showing Betty’s reaction to them meeting.  THIS SHOT IS NOT RANDOM.  Yes, I’m sure the show will go there, she’ll get jealous of V at some point.  Betty thinking that Archie is jealous of Chad is not the same as Archie actually being jealous of Chad.  

I kind of loved how Chad just jumps in here to join in the karaoke night - he didn’t redeem himself from the previous scene where he SAT IN THE BACK OF HER CLASS WHILE SHE WORKED but I like how they’re not playing him completely evil

Next scene: BETTY AND TONI ARE TALKING!!! I REPEAT!!! BETTY AND TONI ARE TALKING!!! Seriously, it’s so refreshing that they’re actually letting all kinds of new dynamics and character interactions happen this season.  

Also, NEDSLIST!!!! THIS SHOW!!!!

I am living for Cheryl being completely beautiful whilst yelling at construction workers.  

So like... she actually doesn’t have that much money. She couldn’t really afford the donation for the school... I kind of wish that once she says “I can’t afford it” people would like, not keep pushing? I’m looking at you Toni, whom I absolutely adore, I just wish the writers didn’t make it like Cheryl’s being squeezed dry.  I get that it’s needed for plot purposes but I don’t love it.  

Kevin and Betty are friends again!!! Love it!!! 

Karaoke night thoughts: 

At no point is Jughead hanging out or interacting with the rest of the group.  He stays separate from them - with Tabitha, which I appreciate, but I am just noting this because I’m sure it was done purposefully. 

“She probably forgot it’s Gekko now” uhhhh didn’t Toni announce V as “Veronica Gekko” in the last episode?? LOL THE SHADE

I love Veronica’s voice

Ok so Chad actually comes off so great in this scene?? I guess this is part of his manipulation - come off as such a great guy in front of all her friends to get them to like him? 

Jughead’s reaction to the duet is so me every time I’ve watched people do karaoke lmao

During the “or do you need more? Is there something else you’re searching for” they cut to Archie’s and Betty’s reaction.  Archie is not thinking about V in that moment.  

I am not seeing one iota of jealousy from Archie.  He looks genuinely happy for them.  

This Chad and Veronica bed scene makes me uncomfortable.  But I’m glad they’re showing their softer moments! 

The Archie/football recruitment sequence... Chad in the back of Veronica’s classroom again??? HOW IS THIS HAPPENING I HATE THIS!! Also, this is another scene where Chad looks jealous of Archie... not the other way around. 

Britta!!! I love her.  And I feel like the writers inserted her in specifically for Britta Lundin, former Riverdale writer and acclaimed author (read her book Ship It, seriously, it’s so good), and I love that. BUT THE WAY ARCHIE LOOKS AT BETTY IN THIS SCENE IS THAT EVEN LEGAL

We get the first glimpse Toni’s “Operation Bring Cheryl Out Of Hiding” plan here, when Archie asks her for funding for the football team and says its earmarked for something else (hmmmmmmm... this plan has been in the works for a while... and I’m here for it) 

Ok. This scene where Archie goes to ask Cheryl for money is... a mess.  My first reaction is that it was so OOC for Archie to bring up Jason in that way.  Then I got to thinking... Archie probably would want to honour his dad in that way and was genuinely suggesting that as something that might actually be helpful to her, as opposed to purposely trying to manipulate her.  He knows what it’s like to lose a family member, he just didn’t realize that Cheryl doesn’t grieve in the same way. The boy doesn’t have a malicious bone in his body.  Anyway, now he’s been banished from Thornhill! But don’t we see him (and everyone) there in a bts photo from possibly 5x08? Isn’t that at Thornhill? Will this be addressed or will the writers just forget it ever happened?

I love Betty and Kevin investigating together. It’s so refreshing. 

Ok this place Jughead is going to is legit the creepiest shit I’ve ever seen.  I am having trouble making myself care about this “Mothmen” plot??

Betty’s “Straight to the Point” interrogation style is actually effective in this truck stop stakeout scene.  

Alice again with her wine... I wonder if there will actually be an “Alice is an alcoholic” storyline or is the wine just part of her personality now?

Ok like it’s so inappropriate for a teacher to be wearing an HBIC shirt BUT I AM HERE FOR THIS DRAMATIC VIXENS HALLWAY WALK!! And Toni is correct, Cheer is a sport so sit down, Archie.  Notably Toni adds in “not even Cheryl managed to do that” - I’m thinking she new Ms. Bell would be eavesdropping ;)

WHY IS THIS PORTAIT OF JASON WORTH SO MUCH?? 

Is this Minerva character going to be important?? I keep seeing people talking about how she and Cheryl are going to hook up but is that just because she’s a female character who interacts with Cheryl? I’m not seeing it yet but hey, it’s Riverdale.  

JUGHEAD BRINGING UP THE EPIC HIGHS AND LOWS OF HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL I SCREAMED

Seriously though, since we know Jughead wasn’t there when Archie said that, there’s two options: Either Archie told him he said it, or (my preferable theory) Archie used to just SAY THAT REGULARLY and has said it in front of Jug lmao.

Chad again seems legit supportive when she tells him about her jewelry store plan?? THEY’RE SO UP AND DOWN!!! 

Ok, so Betty is an FBI agent (trainee, whatever) and she JUST NOW THOUGHT OF TRACING POLLY’S CELL PHONE

This scene... when Veronica finds out Chad has been talking to Hiram behind her back... this is where she decides she’s done with Chad. 

Another scene with Archie - I am still getting zero vibes that he’s into Veronica? And zero vibes that Veronica’s into Archie? It makes complete sense that Veronica would want to help the bulldogs.  Chad is a total dick here and is definitely threatened by Archie... again, not the other way around.  Side note: Chad, if threatened by Archie, is a TOTAL IDIOT for suggesting Archie renovates the Pembrooke - like, he’s going to be working? All the time? Where Veronica is staying? And probably taking his shirt off because he’s sweaty from all the working?? WHYYYYY WOULD CHAD ENCOURAGE THIS

This little flirty scene between Jughead and Tabitha (and it’s the first that I would say has any flirty undertones whatsoever) is pretty cute.  

THIS BARCHIE PORCH SCENE I HAVE THOUGHTS

The fact that people are suggesting Betty showed up there because she wanted to talk to Jughead is SENDINNNNGGGGGG

Let’s be clear, she only asked about Jughead so she could make sure he wasn’t home so that she could bone Archie. There is no other interpretation for this. 

THIS IS THE BEST BARCHIE KISS TO DATE

They are playing the song from the porch scene in the pilot... DON’T TELL ME BARCHIE IS MEANINGLESS WHEN THEY ARE USING THIS SONG

I think the fact that this is the first time they had sex and we didn’t see it is meaningful - they are showing that the relationship is deepening and they are more than “just sex”

As Betty leaves, Archie looks like he wants to reach out for her and then stops himself - he is definitely falling hard and he’s afraid Betty isn’t feeling the same way

Ok, Cheryl is straight up wearing lingerie in Toni’s office!!! And the red lipstick is back - notably, throughout the entire show, she has worn the red lipstick as a kind of shield - she never has it for her “vulnerable” scenes.  Seems like that is still happening. AND this is where we see Boss Toni’s plan come into fruition - she started up the vixens and MADE SURE CHERYL FOUND OUT ABOUT IT because she knew that was the one thing that would make Cheryl come out of her Thornhill hiding spot.  Well played, Toni.  

Archie and Veronica announcing the bulldog funding... again, I’m not seeing ANY “romantic/attraction” vibes here? He does react when she says her last name is Lodge again but like, anyone would? 

MS. BELL YOU GOSSIP I’M OK WITH YOU REPORTING TO CHERYL BUT I DRAW THE LINE AT HIRAM

Is Reggie... filing his nails? Lmao

I really hope Polly isn’t dead?? Like I very much want a Polly redemption story!! 

Sooooo I guess Archie and Jughead are both going to die in this fire? Lol... well... they’re main characters so I’m sure they’re good.  

I’m doooone for this week! So far really enjoying the timejump? Obviously because of barchie but also, everyone is just - better. 

Well this turned out to be a novel.  If you made it this far, thanks for reading :) 

#riverdale #barchie #riverdale thoughts #riverdale 5x06 #5x06 #riverdale season 5

[casmick-consequences]

Hey,

What are your thoughts on Amara?

Send me the name of a character and I will tell you my headcanons for the character.

Amara:

1: sexuality headcanon

Idk. Probably bisexual, but leaning towards men. She looks like she'd be up for a fun night with Rowena. Either that, or she's a Quinn Fabray type; "straight" but likes to experiment.

2: otp

None jfklsjk. Maybe Rowena but that's more side-ship rather than otp.

3: brotp

I actually really liked her little bond with Jack. We only saw a little of it, but now that they're bonded I'd have loved to have seen her connect a bit more with her nephew. But, once again, more side-brotp rather than actual brotp.

4: notp

I hate everything about her connection with Dean. It was creepy, it was almost r*pe-y (for lack of a better word, sorry) and if i didn't hate it before i DEFINITELY hated it when she was flirting with him in a 16(?)-year old body. No. Nope. No thanks.

5: first headcanon that pops into my head

She's probably a great poker player. I know she went to Vegas or whatever it was, but I think she's legit a great Poker player bc her poker-face is legendary. She looks like it.

6: one way in which I relate to this character

I don't. I can't think of anything I relate to with her jskflskdj. She has brown eyes, which I relate to.

7: thing that gives me second hand embarrassment about this character

ANYTHING involving Dean. It's not embarrasment, it's just me cringing, I literally can't watch her scenes with Dean, I hate them djfklsjk.

8: cinnamon roll or problematic fave?

Definitely problematic fave, however she redeemed herself quite a bit in the last season. And I hope she's doing well with her nephew. <3

#tw r word #tw r mention

[casmybelovedass]

The Destiel Folder: Season 7

[Season 4; Season 5; Season 6]

This season is mostly Dean being a depressed bi who can't cope with his crush's death.

This is, in my opinion, the season where Dean actually starts realizing he might for real think of Cas as something more.

Episode 1:

Cas is basically gone, both Bobby and Sam (almost) are ready to compel to whatever he says, but Dean still tries to get him to come back. "You can turn this around. Please!" (3:13) Denial

Dean has no idea how to deal with God!Castiel, but desperate to find him, and getting emotional "I don't even know what book to hit for this." "Then figure it out!" (5:47) Anger

As we have said many times already, angels don't have a sex, Castiel is not a man, and as he states, he is "utterly indifferent to sexual orientation" (8:03), and so is Chuck, God himself, who has admitted having had both girlfriends and boyfriends.

Dean turns off the news the moment he hears a woman describe Cas as "young and sexy", while doing that jaw clentch thing of his (10:14) ... huh... [and this doesn't really matter, but after this we immediately see Dean in a purple flannel. PURPLE! Go Bi!Dean]

"He's not a guy, he's a God [...] Cas is never coming back. He's lied to us, he's used us, he's cracked your gourd like it was nothing. No more talk. We've spent enough on him." (11:09) Dean trying to jump to the 5th stage of grief. Yeah, no baby that's not how it works

Dean tries so hard to convince himself that Cas's gone so he can kill him, but can't really. "Just kill him now!" and struggles hard to hold Castiel's glare. And as soon as Death offers a second option to killing him, Dean takes it. Bargening

"Dean, look, I know you think Cas is gone." "That's because he is." (31:22) Again with trying to jump to acceptance. Not doing great, Dean. In fact, "Yeah, you know how I'm gonna deal? I'm gonna stuff my pie hole, I'm gonna drink, and I'm gonna watch some asian cartoon porn. And act like the world's about to explode, because it is." (32:17) There it is. Depression.

[Remember this: Dean has no shame in watching porn in front of his brother. Wait a few seasons and see]

Just moments earlier, Dean was all "That's not Cas, Cas is dead" and shit, and now he goes "What? You need something else?" worried-husband-mode the moment Cas asks for help (34:50). Also#MARRIED (35:16)

Bobby: "Where's Sam? It's go time." Dean: *looks back at Cas worried* (37:12)

MUST HELP HUSBAND (38:06) look at Dean's eyes!!! They're like 'It's okay, it's okay. You've got this.' "I'm sorry, Dean." Cas chose these words to be his last, thinking he was going to die. LOOK AT DEAN (38:21) ICWAW this would MEAN SOMETHING ELSE

"CAS! [...] Is he breathing? ... Maybe angels don't need to breathe." says the one who was going around saying Cas was gone for good. "He's gone, Dean." "... damn it... *tears up* Cas, you child... Why didn't you listen to me." #MARRIED (39:15) Then he goes "CAS?!" as soon as he starts breathing again. ICWAW, we would SCREAM "LOVE" in this scene

"Imma find some way to redeem myself to you *looks at Dean straight in the eyes*" "*looks at Cas up and down*... Alright, well, one thing at the time, come on. Let's get you out of here." "I mean it, Dean." *eye love-making* "... Okay." (40:30) ICWAW, oooohhh, the meanings this scene would have...

Dean's face when the Leviathans tell him Cas is dead. Again. (41:18)

Episode 2:

Dean looking at the Leviathans occupying Cas' body. The HATE (1:44)

"... okay... so he's gone. *shakes while tearing up* [...] Dumb son of a bitch..." (5:14) Here we go again... I'm fine, shut up

Dean picks up, washes, folds and keeps Cas' coat (5:23) SWEET

"You just lost one of the best friends you've ever had." this hurts me. "... I'm fine, really." (12:11)

"You asked me how I was doing? Well, not good." (38:54)

Episode 5:

Dean progressively drinks more as his nightmares get worse and he misses Cas more and more. 3 times we see him drink, only in the first 12 minutes.

Sam can tell Dean feels like shit, and bet one of those reasons is Cas "Like it or not, the stuff you don't talk about, it doesn't just go away. It builds up." (39:33) Yeah, and not only problems or grief... even love

Episode 7:

Not a destiel moment, but Dean totally got hit on by the waiter. LOL (7:30)

And again. What is it with men in this town and Dean. "We're looking for a necklace." "Romantic. *looks at Dean*" (12:17). Is it an energy reading thing or something? Can they feel the bi energy?

"The Campbell brothers. [...] They weren't actually brothers. That was a cover for their, uhm... alternative life style." (22:40) Huh... I guess calling your lover "brother" runs in the family

"Ever since Cas... I'm having a hard time trusting anybody." (40:44) ouch

Episode 9:

Dean is drunk/high on Leviathan juice, and the first thing he thinks and blabbers about, is Cas (19:48) "I don't even care anymore." Oooohh ICWAW... the possibilities for this scene

Episode 12:

Dean totally checked out that man in uniform. FIGHT ME (16:27)

Episode 13:

"You're head's not in it, man. When Cas died, you were wobbly, but now-" "Now what!!" (39:35) as soon as Sam mentions Cas' death, Dean gets snappy

Episode 17:

Dean keeps getting snappy whenever Sam mentions Cas

"OH my God the love of my life is alive!" (13:02-13:06)

Dean's face when Daphne touches Cas (13:25), and when he calls her his wife (13:41)

AND HIS FUCKING FACE TRYING NOT TO TEAR UP BECAUSE CAS DOESN'T REMEMBER ANYTHING ABOUT HIM (14:16)

You mean to tell me that ICWAW this wouldn't be seen as a mini desperation moment from a man seeing his lover in this situation? Yeah, I don't think so

"What if you were some sort of... I don't know, bad guy." "I... I don't feel like a bad person." Dean's face is like "Damn right you aren't" (16:50)

"He betrayed you, this dude. He was your friend?" Dean looking at him... can't even answer the question (19:59)

Dean says Cas' betrayal is something he cant get over like everything else. And that he doesn't know why. "It doesn't matter why." "Of course it matters!" (20:25)

Dean gets visibly uneasy about Meg being so close to Cas (25:34) jealous boyfriend is jealous

Dean doesn't want Cas to remember, afraid he'll leave again (32:18)

"I've known you for years!" (32:34) poor baby. Also "You're an angel." "Uhm, I'm sorry? Is that a flirtation?" DEAN'S FACE (32:42)

Dean doesn't want Cas to be hurt by his own memories and past actions (33:00)

"You used to fight together. Bestest friends, actually." Yeah, look at that reaction. Let's see how he reacts to being called his boyfriend later on (33:09)

#MARRIED!!! I'll just leave this. No comment (33:41)

As Cas regains his memories, only 2 of the ones we see are not of Dean. And the only one we hear is the "I'm sorry, Dean." . That is what matters to Cas (and this looks like a slash video. Kudos to the editors) "I remember you... I remember everything." Yeah, no-homo save (34:35)

Not even an hour earlier, Dean was ranting about Cas betraying him, how he couldn't forget and forgive him, and now he is saying Cas did "the best you could at the time", but Cas actually feels guilt and doesn't want Dean to defend him, but Dean does anyway (36:53)

"We didn't part as friends, Dean." "*looks at Cas up and down*... So what?" "I deserved to die." the look on Dean's face (37:18)

Dean gives Cas his trench coat back. The trench coat he kept, folded and all the the truck, for weeks. And that's not even Baby. So he moved the coat, to always have it with him (37:26). I'm not crying, shut up

Also, here, have a deleted scene that breaks my heart

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Episode 20:

Let us all appreciate that one time Dean helped a lesbian flirt with a dude (24:27-25:03)

Episode 21:

Dean is devastated about Cas' mental state, that he did that to himself to save Sam. Look at his eyes in this scene (16:08). Also, Dean still resents Cas for the whole 'New God' crap, but it feels like the real reason is the fact that he left (19:18)

"Cas! Don't make me pull this car over!" "Are you angry? Why are you angry? *puppy eyes*" "... No I-I'm..." #MARRIED (27:28)

Cas says he won't fight anymore, but as soon as Dean's in trouble, he FLIPS

"The angels... they don't care... I think maybe they don't have the equipment to care." (31:49) Touchy much, Dean?, are you trying to convince yourself about that? It feels like he's making excuses to not let himself feel anything for Cas. "It seems like when they try, it just... breaks them apart." ... OK, fuck everything, ICWAW this would totally be seen as romantic angsty reference to Cas

Cas is so lost in his guilt for what he has caused. He looks like a baby, and it gets worse when it comes to Dean

"Why should we give you anything? After everything you have taken from us? The very touch of you curropts. When Castiel first laid a hand on you in Hell, he was lost!" (36:50) okay damn, ICWAW all of this would seem as if they were talking about a love relationship between the two and you can't tell me otherwise

'HURT HUSBAND-MUST PROTECT MODE' (37:17)

"The bone of a righteous mortal and the blood of a fallen angel" ... shut up, I'm dying over these clues (39:11)

"What are you gonna do, Cas?" Dean's eyes are begging him to stay. ICWAW, we would point that out without a shadow of a doubt (39:40)

Episode 23:

"Dude... on my car. He showed up naked... covered in bees!" ... come on, ICWAW this would be a HUGE deal (5:10)

"Go ask him. He was your boyfriend first." (8:51) LISTEN HERE. I study psychology, and one of the first things they teach you is that jokes are based on the truth. HOW MANY OF THESE JOKES WERE MADE?! HUH??!! (plus all the "Dick" jokes Sam made) Also Dean's reaction with the jaw clentch... just saying

Cas keeps stating he doesn't want to fight, but again, Dean's in trouble? FIGHT MODE

"*soft shoulder touch, puppy eyes, serves Dean a sandwich*" ... SOFT #MARRIED COUPLE (18:27)

"You got anything to say on the topic of dicks?" you'd like that, wouldn't you, Dean? (26:42)

Cas is afraid he will do something to cause Dean more trouble. Let's remember he chose what he believed were his last words to be "I'm sorry, Dean.", but as we know, Dean deals with feelings by showing anger... Cas gets upset and copes by playing twister... pathetic. "I can't help. [...] I destroyed everything and I will destroy everything again!" for a moment, Cas is lucid, and expresses his fear, but as soon as Dean gets angry with him, Cas gows back to hide in his world of crazy (26:47)

"I'm not good luck, Dean." "... You know what? [...] I'd rather have you. Cursed or not." Look at Cas' soft little smile as it grows. ICWAW, this would be read as another confession (32:38)

"I'll go with you." SOFT

SEE??! The MOMENT Dick threatens Dean, Cas goes full Angel of the Lord on his ass. MUST PROTECT HUSBAND (36:52) and the utter shock on Dean's face is priceless

And here comes PurGAYtory

[Season 8>>]

#the destiel folder #icwaw #if castiel were a woman #destiel #dean winchester #castiel #dean x castiel #casdean #deancas #supernatural #spn #jensen ackles #misha collins #supernatural spn #supernatural rewatch #spn rewatch #rewatch #supernatural family #spn family #supernatural series #supernatural 15 years #otp #destiel moments #destiel season 7 #my ship #destiel should be canon #timestamp #time stamp #spn season 7

[ffamranxii]

Sailor Stars thoughts:

1. The anime does its absolute best to make the Starlights unlikable. Taiki is a fucking asshole (he won’t even give a dying girl, who he explicitly was taken to visit, an autograph, and tells a bunch of children that their grandfather’s theory about souls becoming stars is dead wrong), Seiya is a Nice Guy who hits on Usagi constantly despite being told multiple times she has a boyfriend, and Yaten is a mildly sarcastic cardboard cutout. I know the manga doesn’t expand on them much but the anime is supposed to help make these people real. Counterexample is Chibi-Chibi, who hardly speaks in the manga and relies on her cuteness alone to be likable. They gave her a very cute voice because it was literally all they had to work with, given how often Chibi-Chibi actually appears

2. The dub cast for the Starlights is frankly awful. As civilians, Taiki alternates between a woman trying too hard to make her voice deep and having a bad cold, Seiya sounds like a prepubescent boy, and Yaten sounds like a woman (which they’re not, as civilians); as Starlights their voices are VERY high pitched, especially Yaten’s. Their sub voices just sound like woman talking a bit deeply and then normal women.

3. Why the FUCK did Toei think literally changing sex was less controversial than crossdressing? The Starlights are women and have always been women. Plus, them being male civilians in the anime creates a paradox, because if they’re men with sailor crystals who can become senshi, why can’t Mamoru - who is confirmed multiple times throughout the series as carrying the earth’s star seed and thus being Sailor Earth - do the same? Naoko said Mamoru can’t be a sailor senshi because he’s a man, but the Starlights don’t abide by this rule, they change their fucking biological sex

4. Why is absolutely no one concerned that Chibi-Chibi, a THREE YEAR OLD, just goes off on her own and has her own little adventures? She wanders into some strange old man’s house and they’re all “oh that’s just Chibi-Chibi,” and no one is worried that a literal stranger invites a three year old into his house where he gives her toys and candy? The 90s were WILD, man

5. Why does Chibi-Chibi, again who is THREE YEARS OLD, have a thigh gap?

6. This one’s on Naoko because it’s like this in the manga, but the anime is supposed to expand on the universe so I blame them too: Why does literally nobody question Chibi-Chibi’s motives? Some strange pink haired child who fucking falls out of the sky one day up and brainwashes Usagi’s mom into thinking she’s her second daughter, and nobody bats an eye at this? That’s sus as fuck and literally the only question anyone has is “is she your kid or Chibiusa’s?” She doesn’t even have a NAME, “chibi” is just a random word she says!

7. I am DIGGING the mobster feel of the Animamates’ civilian forms. Especially Iron Mouse and Tin Nyanko, who clearly launder money through a shady car dealership.

8. The Starlights’ only redeeming qualities are their snazzy entrance music and Seiya’s red suit

9. Why is Aluminum Siren the only Animamate who understands that a senshi has a pure star seeds? Like, y’all killed the senshi of your home planets to take their star seeds so YOU could be senshi (which is presumably why Galaxia wants more seeds, to make more Animamates with them), shouldn’t you know that?

10. Aluminum Siren/Lead Crow are trying their damn hardest to give Harumichi a run for their money in the quest to become the Best Space Lesbians.

11. So the Moon Kingdom fosters loyalty through child soldiers. I’m assuming Queen Serenity has her own senshi in the form of our senshi’s mothers, etc. (Which begs the question of if the Asteroid Senshi are supposed to be the future kids of our senshi or if they too are child soldiers from the asteroids they’re named after.) Kinmoku seems to foster loyalty by having the Kakyuu’s senshi fall in unrequited love with her. (In the manga it’s stated Kakyuu has a husband who died when their planet was destroyed.) I mean, whatever works, right?

12. I LOVE Tin Nyanko’s dub voice. She’s only around Usagi’s age and she sounds it

13. The dub actress for Lead Crow seems like she’s half assing it. Her voice doesn’t raise properly when she yells, she never sounds really angry, and it’s just so odd. I find a lot of dub voices do this, while the original Japanese VAs will scream their lungs out into the mic

14. On the reverse, Galaxia’s voice actress is a badass. She’s supposed to have a deep menacing voice but I like the one they gave her in the dub. She’s quiet, and sounds almost kind, and that’s a fucking TERRIFYING sort of villain we don’t see a lot of. Even when she’s pissed she doesn’t raise her voice.

15. Why are Lead Crow and Tim Nyanko the same height? Lead Crow is like 5’10 and Tin Nyanko is 4’11 like Sailor Moon

16. As an aside, Tin Nyanko and Lead Crow don’t like each other, which reminds me of the cats vs crows trash can showdown in Haikyuu lol

17. Haruka’s hate boner for Seiya gives me life

18. FINALLY someone calls the Starlights out on being assholes but it’s only after Makoto sees them harassing a THREE YEAR OLD (Chibi-Chibi). Literally everyone BUT Usagi thinks they’re assholes. “They sing such beautiful songs!” Bro. You can sing pretty and still be a fucking dick.

19. Lead Crow goes after Sailor Moon only after reading Siren’s notebook. Ditzy SIREN is the smartest Animamate, lord help them

20. Kakyuu’s dub voice is SO GOOD. She’s my favorite minor character, I’m still bitter they didn’t show Sailor Kakyuu

21. Seiya’s crush on Usagi was so awkwardly shoehorned in. I hate it. Jesus fucking Christ Usagi is sobbing in the goddamn rain about how much she misses Mamoru and Seiya is STILL coming onto her.

22. It is literally so fucking funny to me that Mamoru spends all of Stars fucking dead. He’s just a perpetual damsel in distress.

23. Rei literally lectures Usagi about leading Seiya on and how “you need to do the right thing and tell him you already have someone,” AS IF USAGI HASN’T BEEN DOING THAT AT EVERY AVAILABLE OPPORTUNITY. THE FIRST TIME THEY MET SHE SAID SHE HAD A BOYFRIEND, SHE’S TOLD SEIYA OVER AND OVER THAT SHE ISN’T INTERESTED IN HIM, THAT SHE’S GOT A BOYFRIEND, THAT SHE LOVES HER BOYFRIEND. The fucking MISOGYNY here, like it’s Usagi leading Seiya on instead of Seiya being a fucking Nice Guy who can’t take no for a goddamn answer. Shut the fuck up, Rei.

24. Pretty sure under Kakyuu’s headdress is a pair of odango

25. The fact that Iron Mouse and Aluminum Siren both die when their bracelets are removed yet Tin Nyanko doesn’t implies that Tin Nyanko was the original Sailor Mau. Mouse and Siren dying implies that forcing senshi powers on a civilian is dangerous and that Galaxia’s bracelets are the only thing keeping them alive (albeit brainwashed). Yet Tin Nyanko seems to revert to “good” when one of her bracelets is destroyed. Galaxia has to intervene and kill her personally. Tin Nyanko may have offered her senshi powers to spare Mau (this applies only in the anime; in the manga she’s explicitly said to have killed Sailor Mau)

26. Oooh Galaxia’s angry voice is so commanding and sexy

27. Don’t gimme that “we love Usagi but we love you Starlights just as much.” No you fucking don’t. The whole death scene in the anime is just so... ugh. Bad.

28. The Outers fighting Galaxia is hilarious. They’re supposed to be stronger than the Inners yet Galaxia never even has to get out of her chair to kick their asses. The writers were trying real hard to make us fear the worst and back the senshi into a corner but literally they’ve made this an impossible battle to win that only becomes winnable due to plot armor.

29. Rewatching Stars and classic after Eternal and Crystal makes me miss the battle damage the fuku took. The new series always has them looking pristine, but in classic they actually get roughed up and battle scarred. It makes it more real.

30. Aww how come Uranus and Neptune got to keep their names when they joined Galaxia? I wanna know what whack ass Animamate name they would’ve gotten. (Also Galaxia literally just sent them out like Pokémon, wtf)

31. I feel like Saturn dying shouldn’t be possible since she’s literally a senshi of death but... whatever, go off I guess.

32. So.... Uranus and Neptune joining Galaxia to try and take her star seed is a cool idea that absolutely did not happen in the manga, and needed more than half an episode of development. Would’ve been a cool plot if it wasn’t so rushed.

33. So much of this season was rushed so they could tie the series up at a beat 200 episodes. If they really didn’t want to go over 200, they should’ve cut the Nehelennia arc (which isn’t in the manga anyway) and and focused on developing the Animamates, this sweet Harumichi betrayal plot, and explaining Chibi-Chibi??? Her existence makes no sense without Sailor Cosmos, and they just... didn’t include her??? Wtf

#sailor moon #ffamran watches anime

[serendipitous-magic]

hey! im sure you've talked about this before considering one of your fics is a rewrite of st3.. but do you hate everything about season 3? or are there parts you find redeemable? do you think some of the things people dislike about the season will be fixed or explained in later seasons? (coming from someone who also wasn't very impressed with the season but still tries to find things to like about it...)

There were a very few select scenes (mostly in the first and second episode) that were pretty good. The Party surprising Dustin when he gets home. Being little shits to Steve in the mall. I even think that the scenes with Mike and El (in the first two episodes, let’s ignore everything after that) were pretty good because they showed that the relationship was suuuuuper based on just like... kissing and being cutesy. And they don’t really communicate with each other or seem to connect the way they did in S1. It showed a realistic development in their (first) relationship. Karen consoling Nancy was pretty good, in that one scene. And about the first half of Nancy and Jonathan’s story arc was pretty good, they had some good moments there. Like Jonathan being like “We were interns!” and calling Nancy out on her privilege. (Too bad Nancy’s scenes were also ruined a lot of the time by absolutely cartoonish, over-the-top sexism.) Will’s scene at Castle Byers could have been really powerful, and it almost was, except that they literally never brought it up again, never paid it off, never did anything with it, so any weight and meaning it might have had just kind of... wasn’t there. And the byeler fight in the garage was a similar deal: it could have been really meaningful and important... and then it just wasn’t.

But I feel like after episode 2, things just get worse and worse and worse. The acting was really over the top, which I don’t blame on the actors at all because the script itself was fucking terrible, and the directing couldn’t have been that great either. The score was pretty eh. Didn’t really seem inspired. The overall Look and aesthetic was way overboard and fake compared to the first two seasons. The first two seasons looked like they actually took place in the 80s, in a real town. S3 looked like somebody sat down a bunch of modern middle school kids and said, “What do you think the ‘80s looked like?” and used that for set design. Garish. Over the top. Way too much neon.

And let’s not even get into the mess they called a plot. But I won’t get into that yet again.

Basically, there were the seeds of a good story in the first two episodes, but even then, the setup was bad. Russians as the bad guy? Are you fucking serious? We’re gonna make this a cartoon now? ... fucking okay I guess.

Oh, and here’s one more little positive note: the prop people gave a fuck. People have been pointing this out. We see Mike’s falcon poster in El’s room, Dustin’s old hat in her room, Hop’s / El’s blue hairband on Max’s ponytail (I think), Joyce wears Jonathan’s shirt, etc. So. Yay prop department. 

Oh and to answer your last question, no, I don’t think there’s any way to save the show after that. Not with the plot decisions they made. And I don’t give a fuck anyway because I won’t be watching any more seasons.

#basically they ruined it from the first episode #by giving it the main plot that they did #and there were a few good scenes #and then as the season went on everything just got worse and worse #and more and more over the top #asks #anon #sts3

[tellywoodtrash]

immj2 30+31.12.20 lbs

30.12.20

lmao ep starts off itself with vansh and kabir ka staring match.

vansh steady in first place, not having blinked for................ like 3 minutes now? this dude a fucking freak.

while riddhima gazes adoringly at him thinking bhagwaan ne mujhe itnaaaaaaaaaa achcha pati diya hai. pft. idk what the hell sins you did in your last life riddhima, to get a husband like this one in this life, but it had to be something reallllllllllll bad. like stealing from little orphans and kicking puppies or some shit.

thankfully dadi is here to put an end to this chutiyaapa.

countdown blah blah, no1 currrrrrrrrr.

itna pheeeeeeeeeenka happy new year. bhai-behen ho kya???

now we talking.

he just says some trite shit like new kahaani that will be remembered for ages blah blah and gives creepy looks. dude why can’t you be normal on oneeeee bloody day?

ahaana also giving random creepy looks seeing vansh/riddhima hugging. and she goes and............

i think i watch this show and rrahul a little too closely ki i instantly knew this isn’t his hand and thus it’s not vansh’s hand she’s holding.

yupppppppppp. bola tha na.

damn they make a hotass couple of shady bitches.

ok wow i’m really feeling it. wish kabir wasn’t a sociopath who is incapable of feeling attachment (“love” is too strong a word) for anyone but his mother.

lmao his reaction when ahaana tells him ki riddhima didn’t believe any of the pattiii she padaofied her about vansh.

ok but how do these two know each other??? matlab yeh le aaya hai issko? i thought vansh le aaya hoga?!!?

mereko kya kaunsa manhoos le aaya? i’m just here for the attractive ppl pressing their bodies up against each other. keep on keeping on, #KaHana

he’s warning her against ever double-crossing him and dude the angry/hate-sex vibes here are *~~~ExQuISiTe*~~~~

the way she’s confidently gazing at him all sexy tells me she’s a much more seasoned player than riddhima and i already love her more than the damn lead of the show.

damn. that’s a gnarly period you got riddhima. that’s an unusual amount of flow. go see a doctor about it, sis.

i’ve heard about ppl making art with menstrual blood and all, but this is fucking ridiculous.

anyway of course the dumbass goes investigating it. and got fucking attacked in the storeroom and SOMEONE HUNG HER UP. LITERALLY WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN THIS MESSED UP HOUSE DUDE????/ WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU STILLL LIVE HERE????

Chehra Appreciation Break

asadkjasldjlaskdjlsakjdlas the way he’s yelling for everyone and interrogating them of their whereabouts coz riddhima’s missing.

lmao ishani and ahaana’s reactions at this temper tantrum are fucking amazing.

dang what’s with the suuuuuper orange lower half of his face???? ugh. the foundation woes are back now that the beard’s growing back in.

anyway he went barrelling off to find her after some more chabaaya hua dhamkis at his fam. ahaana already regretting moving into this pagaal khaana.

this scene is so fucking disturbing to watch that i don’t even wanna fucking cap it. but she was legit getting HANGED and he managed to get there in the nick of time and save her.

how, you ask? BY SHOOTING AT THE ROPE, INSTEAD OF JUST.......... DOING SOMETHING NORMAL LIKE RUNNING AND PUTTING THE STOOL BACK UNDER HER FEET TO STABILIZE HER. THIS SHOW IS JUST FUCKING BATSHIT INSANE, MY LORD.

this poor girl, my god. i don’t think i’ve ever watched a tellywood FL be tortured to the extent that this one is on a daily basis. it’s fucking ridiculous. there’s no redemption for any of the raisinghanias at this point. she just needs to fucking leave (and file several domestic violence cases against each and every one of them, except dadi.)

anyway she tells him whatever went down today, starting from the period blood fiasco onwards and he’s........ vibrating in anger. cool i guess.

some promises and shit about how who ever did this will pay, time for “humaara khel” and .......... dude. you say this shit every single time. and nothing changes. i don’t give a fuck anymore about your stupid promises. move the fuck outta this hellhole with your wife if you really mean it.

seedha jaake ahaana ke sar pe bandook taan di. based on what evidence? only the Good Lord above knows, coz vansh and the writers sure don’t.

no literally based on what is he accusing her and pulling the trigger??????? idgi??????

almost shot her and is saying “riddhima pe kharonchh nahi aani chahiye, baat ishq aur vishwaas ki hai” and ahaana is giggling and literally what the fuck is going on i’m so confused.

ahaana saying wowwwww, you want revenge also, and she shouldn’t get hurt also.

MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!!!!!!!!! I KNEW IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HE’S THE ONE WHO BROUGHT AHAANA IN!!!!!!!!!!!!

literally what the fuck is this dude on???? badla chahiye, par dard nahi hona chahiye. bhai, kya phoonk ke aaye ho, humein bhi toh thoda de do.

ok this is tooooo fucking convoluted a game. riddhima thinks kabir is the one attacking her. but it’s kabir + ahaana. kabir thinks ahaana is on his side and brought her into VR mansion, but ahaana is double agent who was actually planted in kabir’s nazar by vansh to fuck over BOTH kabir and riddhima. i think?????????

ahaana be like re devaaaaaa, what fucking madness have i gotten myself into????????????? the things i have to do for health insurance coverage during a pandemic.

———————————————————————

31.12.20

first 5 minutes is some new year ka naach gaana bs. fwding.

ok this fucker is a legit motherflipping crazy. he just wants to keep torturing riddhima for god knows how long.

even ahaana is alarmed.

did he do absolutely noooooo research after the cliff chhalaang? like....... this revenge shit is so dumb at this point, when he knows she brought in vihaan to stop kabir from ruining the family, and took a second fucking bullet for him?!?!?!?!?!?! they shouldn’t have written the second gunshot plot point, coz now he looks like a reallllllllll unappreciative fucker for whom literally no good deed is enough.

WHAT PYAAR AND VISHWAAS, FUCKER???????? LITERALLY WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?????? YOU’VE PLAYED THESE GAMES WITH HER FROM THE VERY START OF YOUR MARRIAGE AND MAYBE TOOK A BREAK FOR A WEEK OR TWO IN BETWEEN - WHEN SHE GOT SHOT THE FIRST TIME AND DURING ISHANI’S WEDDING. THAT’S WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT??????/ LIKE.......... THIS MAKES NO BLOODY SENSE. THIS CHARACTER IS JUST SUCH A SUPREME DOUCHEBAG, MY GOD. THERE’S ABSOLUTELY NO REDEEMING HIM WHATSOEVER.

also can’t say rrahul’s extra chabaaaaa chabaaaaaaa ke bolna is making this enjoyable to watch at all.

all i wanna know is what ahaana has on him that he’s indebted to her and thought her worthy enough to join forces with. SPILL SPILL SPILL SPILL!!!!!!!!!!!! what does ahaana get outta all this?!!?!?!!!!!!

riddhima on the other hand running around wondering whom vansh is gonna murder. SIS YOU JUST GOT STRANGULATED CAN YOU SIT DOWN FOR A HOT SEC AND REST?!?!!?!?

ahaana is like bro you gonna ruin riddhima’s life, and he’s like yeah, that’s what i want. jesus christ, dude. just divorce her then. why prolong this shit out like this????? truly psychopathic.

riddhima hears his voice and heads to the pool area..........

............. isn’t that his shoulder there behind the tree? is she fucking blind???????? HOW CAN SHE NOT SEE HIS 7 FOOT TALL HULKING ASS BEHIND THAT PATLA SA JHAADI?????? HE’S LITERALLY THERE LIKE........

........... she left. god. she’s really really REALLY stupid. like pretty sure these crimes against her count as extraaaaaaaaa bad....... like, pick on someone with your own brain capacity, vansh? leave the simple minded sis alone!

the only gift that’s acceptable from you rn sir, is divorce papers. and a self-filed restraining order promising to stay 3 whole districts away.

yikes, that beard is notttttt growing in well.

“tum mujhe apne saare stress de do.” BITCH YOU’RE HER BIGGEST STRESS. ASSHOLE. I HATE YOU SO MUCH.

“tumse door jaake jaaonga kahaan? abhi toh bohut kuch baaki hai.” fucking dieeee, you psychopath.

lmaoooooooooooooooo her face when she doesn’t understand wtf this gift is supposed to be. i’ve been there sis. trying to fake enthusiasm for some reallllll bad gifts from men is truly painful.

also she’s so dang cute when they let her use her face properly!!!!!! har waqt bechaari ko bass rulaate rehte hain iss show mein.

one ainvayiiii gift ke bahaane some random cuteness.

sis gazing at him some more thinking omg he loves me soooooooo much.

she remembered ahaana’s warning, and is like no she was lying to me!!!!!!!!! stupid stupid stupiddddddd. no matter whoever planted her, you should believe that sister over your haraami misters. motive jo bhi ho, bol toh behen sach hi rahi thi.

yuck that looks ugly af. why the hell would you want that on your bedroom wall? esp. when your bedroom is already so goddamn fugly.

anyway he’s gaslighting her some more about ahaana blah blah.

riddhima like i’ll prove it. le, iska jee nahi bharaa. she wants to do more jasoosi and go get stuck in random traps that try to kill her.

vansh promising he’ll throw ahaana and her partners out if she can prove it. meaning you’ll........... throw yourself out?????

whatever man, idk and idc anymore what this fucker does. i’m just here for the faces.

threatening notes planted in all these ppl’s rooms. everyone instantly like OMG VANSHHHHHHHHHHH DID THISSSSS. lol coz who else does this chutiyaapa of leaving random messages around like this.

but nope. chachi saw riddhima’s earring lying there and knows it’s her.

isko bhi mila.

lmao kabir rueing the day he set eyes on riddhima coz jeena haraam kar rakha hai ladki ne.

riddhima like mwahahahahhaha they must have got my notes and now they’ll come attack me! behen, woh toh note ke bina bhi roz karte aaye hain...............

there. promptly got jumped.

surprise, surprise.

lol attitude toh dekho behen ka. wish she was the lead of the show instead of riddhima.

#ishq mein marjawan 2 #immj2 #immj2 lbs #episode liveblogs